Ryder Cup 2014: Team USA Should Be Worried About Recent Play of Captain's Picks

Tom Watson's captain's picks for his Team USA squad heading into the 2014 Ryder Cup have been put under a magnifying glass with the Americans looking to make up for their 2012 collapse, and early results aren't encouraging.

The announcement was made on Sept. 2, which included Keegan Bradley, Hunter Mahan and Webb Simpson as the final three members of the 12-man Team USA outfit. 

Instead of selecting the American players who are dominating the FedEx Cup playoffs at the moment and playing the best golf, Watson opted to go with those who have been there before. 

There is still plenty of time left before play kicks off at the Gleneagles Hotel on Sept. 26, but his trio of picks are plummeting at the wrong time.

Coming off the Deutsche Bank Championship, which Watson was able to see before making his picks, it wasn't so bad. Mahan had recently won The Barclays, and both Bradley and Simpson finished around the top 20 at the Deutsche Bank Championship.

When they turned around to play at the BMW Championship this past weekend, though, it all went sour.

Mahan, after finishing in 64th at TPC Boston, shot seven over par to finish in 59th with no rounds below 70. Without his win at The Barclays, he wouldn't have even been qualified as a top-30 finisher to play at the Tour Championship.

Simpson wasn't much better, finishing five over par in a tie for 53rd place. Keep in mind that there were only 70 golfers in the tournament and three withdrew.

Jared Wickerham/Getty Images

And as the trend would have it, Bradley was one of those three. After rounds of 71 and 72 to start the weekend, he withdrew from the tournament, and Golf Digest's Luke Kerr-Dineen reported it had to do with a possible stroke violation. 

Jason Sobel of Golf Channel warned European Ryder Cup fans in the most sarcastic way possible after a poor opening round from two of the three:

And of course, with Watson's picks folding like paper, there inevitably have been a couple of Americans playing the best golf of their lives, undoubtedly causing the 65-year-old to have second thoughts. 

Chris Kirk led the way for the unheralded surge of U.S.-born golfers recently not under any sort of consideration for a captain's pick by winning the Deutsche Bank Championship. 

Jared Wickerham/Getty Images

Former U.S. captain Paul Azinger, who led the Americans to a Ryder Cup in 2008, disagreed with Watson's decision, according to The Telegraph's James Corrigan.

“I would have selected Chris, certainly,” Azinger told Corrigan. “Webb’s a good player but I think it would have been easier to pick Chris than not to pick Chris. He’s won twice this year. He is hot and I like hot players.”

His emergence came in time for Watson to consider him, but he passed anyway. Kirk cooled off at Cherry Hills with a one-over-par performance, but other surging Americans are taking his place.

Billy Horschel, who finished in second behind Kirk at TPC Boston, dazzled at the BMW Championship by winning the event by two strokes. That put Kirk and Horschel atop the FedEx Cup standings with just one tournament left to play.

Golf Channel's Ryan Burr noted the resurgence of American golf coming at the right time, just not for those representing the U.S. in Gleneagles:

It's hard to blame Watson for not picking Kirk, who has since cooled off, and Horschel, who missed the cut at The Barclays before his incredible two-tournament span. Not including Ryan Palmer, though, is a bit of a head-scratcher.

Palmer turned heads with a tied-for-fifth-place finish at the PGA Championship, and his strong ranking of 23rd place in the standings without a victory this season shows he has been in form for long enough to warrant a pick. 

Instead of going with any of these hot hands, though, Watson went with the experience and the guys who remember the bitter taste of defeat to Europe from previous years.

It may end up paying off to have this experience in the fold come late September, and certainly there is enough time left for the struggling captain's picks to turn things around. But the FedEx Cup playoffs are the ideal time to do so, and that simply hasn't happened for Bradley, Mahan or Simpson.

The Americans already face an uphill battle in trying to defeat a stacked Europe team, and it doesn't get any easier with Watson's three captain's picks struggling at the wrong time.