American Team Stands a Chance in the Ryder Cup

LOUISVILLE -- Want to know why the American team is going to win the Ryder Cup on Sunday?

The complicated answer is that Tiger Woods, the greatest player in the world, will not be playing for the home side here at Valhalla Golf Club this week as he continues to rehabilitate his surgically repaired left knee.

So how do the Americans win without him? Let us count the ways.

For one, Woods has never particularly distinguished himself in Ryder Cup competition. His record is a mediocre 10-13-2 in five previous appearances, and twelve of those losses came when he was paired with a partner in team play.

In other words, he doesn't exactly thrive in this style of team competition, and when he does lose, not only does it provide a significant downer for the rest of his team, it boosts the morale of the opposition, giddy over beating the seemingly invincible No. 1 player in the world.

Woods has never exactly been a real clubhouse leader in this event, a rah-rah guy in the team room. He did take some of the rookies under his wing at the K Club in Ireland two years ago, but it had little effect. Europe won by nine points, even though Woods did win his singles match and finish 3-2 for the week.

Pairing Woods with the proper partner has always presented something of a dilemma for any captain he's played for and several past pairings have backfired badly. In 2004, Captain Hal Sutton decided it was time to make American fans happy and sent him out the first day with Phil Mickelson. It was a match made in Hades as the two barely spoke to each other and grumped their way to consecutive losses in alternate shot and best ball competition, clearly giving Europe a huge lift.

Woods has had ten different partners over the years and seemed most comfortable when he played with his friend and mentor Mark O'Meara in his rookie year and when Jim Furyk was his partner in all four matches at the K Club in Ireland two years ago. He was 1-2 with O'Meara and 2-2 with Furyk.

This week, picking his playing partner is one worry Paul Azinger won't have on his list, though if Woods had been healthy, Furyk almost certainly would have been his man again for most of the team matches.

Perhaps the most significant benefit to Woods's absence this week is that the Americans, for a change, are not considered the favorite for the first time in a long time and really should be expected to lose, on paper at least. Maybe, just maybe, that could work to their advantage. Perhaps they'll actually revel in that underdog status and come out with the sort of us-against-them mentality pro football coaches have been employing to fire up their teams for years.

By the way, anyone notice who's been hanging around the American team all week, and has been granted open entry into their inner sanctum with the approval of his good friend Azinger. Yes, that really is former Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz all over Valhalla. He's a guy who also made a career of giving stirring pre-game inspirational speeches, a coach who could make a contest against Slippery Rock sound as if his plucky undersized and over-matched lads -- already 52-point favorites -- were about to take on the Lombardi Packers.

In other words, the Americans may really get fired up this week, just the way they did at the Country Club in Brookline, Mass., the night before their Sunday singles in the 1999 event, the last time America actually won the Cup.

The U.S. team that memorable year was facing a four-point deficit after alternate shot and best ball play had concluded, then won eight matches and halved another in singles to mount the greatest comeback in Cup history to win back the Cup.

The speaker the night before the singles was then Gov. George Bush, who told the team about the last stand of Davey Crockett and his gutsy good old boys at the Alamo. Maybe the future president (surprise, surprise) forgot to tell them all that Davey and the guys didn't survive, but the American golfers clearly were inspired by their own seemingly hopeless predicament and beat the odds with a stirring victory the next day.

There are other reasons to feel semi-confident about the Americans chances. Certainly, they can't play any worse than they have in the last two Ryder routs, and Azinger's new selection system has provided him a team filled with players who have performed well in the same year as the Cup.

If he goes through with his plan to pair Kentuckians Kenny Perry and J.B. Holmes and they happen to win their opening match Friday morning, it could light the spark for the American side. The flip side, of course, is the possibility of a backfire that instead will spur the Europeans to greater heights, so maybe that's a push.

The Americans may have another advantage. Some European players may not be all that enamored with their captain, Nick Faldo, especially after he left two of their main point winners in recent years -- Colin Montgomerie and Darren Clarke -- off his 12-man squad.

No matter how he performed in the weeks and months leading up to the Cup, Montgomerie became a dominant point-producing force for the European side in recent years, including a 4-0-1 mark in 2002, the first of three straight European victories.

Clarke paired with his best pal Lee Westwood to form a formidable team over the first two days in recent competitions, and while Westwood has taken the high road so far this week, there's little doubt he was miffed that Faldo had left Clarke off the squad, especially after he won twice in the last four months on the European Tour.

Will there be a touch of rancor in the European team room over the snubs of Monty and Clarke? Will Europe's magical team chemistry of so many years past explode in Faldo's test tube this time around, especially if the Americans jump out to an early lead on Friday? Will the Europeans play their hearts out for a captain some of them may not particularly care for?

All of the above leads your friendly Ryder Cup correspondent to believe the American team really does stand a decent chance of prevailing here this week and keeping old Sam Ryder's Cup on American soil. Final score, U.S. 15, Europe 13, and remember where you heard it first. If they lose, my email address, as always, is available down below for any and all abuse.

Leonard Shapiro can be reached at Len.Shapiro@washingtonpost.com