Ryder Cup 2010: Do the Players Really Care?

When you think of Mark Calcavecchia, you think, "Yeah, he’s a tough guy."  But when he lost a match in the 1991 Ryder Cup, he went to the beach at Kiawah Island and cried. 

When you think of Fred Couples, you think, "Way too laid back to worry about anything."  But when he lost a meaningful point in the 1989 Ryder Cup, he was choking back tears.

So no matter what your buddy says or what you read in some tabloid, when it comes to Ryder Cup, both sides play for keeps.  

“It's amazing. There's no other experience like it,” said Ian Poulter. “I've been excited since February pretty much knowing I'm in the side, and I cannot wait to get there. It's just unique. There's no other tournament. Add all the four majors together, we're playing for no money, it's just pure passion.” 

He sewed up his spot with a victory at Accenture.

“Going into this year, sometimes you don't know what you're missing," Hunter Mahan explained. “But I know what I'm missing if I didn't make the team. So that's what I was really striving for the last few months.” 

Mahan became a lock by winning WGC Bridgestone.

“Valhalla a couple of years ago did nothing but stoke the fires as far as my desire to be on the next team,” US Open champion Graeme McDowell insisted. 

Stewart Cink has been on the last four Ryder Cup teams, and this year will be his fifth, this time as a captain’s pick. 

“It's just a really neat, neat atmosphere to play in,” he explained. “It's charged, it's exciting, and there's really almost nothing like it in the game.”

The rookies don’t really know what to expect, but they have heard tales.

“Just to hear some of the stories about how nervous people get, but how much fun it is at the same time, to have the team camaraderie and to have the nerves so bad you can't hit the shot on the first tee that you have to say, 'You hit it; I can't do it' is exciting, to be put in that situation and see how you handle it,” Matt Kuchar admitted, after knowing he would be on the team.  

The Ryder Cup was not on his radar screen until late in the year. “I was a guy that only a year or two ago was trying to make sure I kept my card.”

Ian Poulter recalled his first Ryder Cup experience which was in 2004.   

“[My] pulse rate was pretty high, to be honest. It was interesting getting the ball on the tee,” he began. “Silly as that may sound, if you actually get up close—I didn't play on the Friday, but if you get up close to some of the guys when they're trying to put the ball on the tee peg, you will see their hands shaking. You know, you're fired up. The adrenaline is rushing, and your nerves are going, and you know what, that first tee shot is not very nice, so just get up and hit it really hard.”

US captain Corey Pavin can’t even remember the start of his first Ryder Cup.

“The first match I played in '91, I was paired with Mark Calcavecchia, and to be honest with you, I don't remember the first shot,” he said. “I must have hit a bad shot and I put it out of my mind.” 

He did remember that they lost that match.  “We were playing Steven Richardson and Mark James, I believe. We got pummeled pretty good. So that was my introduction to the Ryder Cup.”

Pavin has a clearer memory about 1993 when he and Lanny Wadkins were playing foursomes as the first match out.

“We had about a two-hour fog delay, and I remember just standing around waiting and waiting and waiting, and then we got to the tee and it dawned on me that I had the odd holes. So I was hitting the first shot of the Ryder Cup that year as the away team, we had the honor,” he began. “I just remember being extremely nervous,  I remember putting the peg in the ground and trying to putt the ball on the tee, and I was having a difficult time of it because my hand was shaking so much.

Nevertheless, he hit a nice drive and they won the match.  In 1995, he was again first match out, playing with Tom Lehman. “He was a rookie on that team,” Pavin recalled about Lehman, “and he hit the first shot off the first hole and just piped it right down the middle.”

Luke Donald recalls being a Ryder Cup rookie was a nerve-wracking experience. 

“I think my first match I played with Paul McGinley. He was a calm influence over me and kind of steadied me and got me thinking the right way and got me enjoying the Ryder Cup experience,” Donald said.  

Steve Stricker who will likely be Tiger Woods’ partner the first day at least, also remembers the jitters. 

“I was definitely more nervous at the Ryder Cup than I was at a Presidents Cup. I don't know for whatever reason. I mean, you just feel that sense of history, I guess, at a Ryder Cup, and you know that you're at something a little bit more important,” he said.
“You find yourself feeding off that pressure. I think that's why you see a lot of great play during Ryder Cups, because guys find that inner strength and dig down and play even a little bit better.”

Phil Mickelson was a rookie at Oak Hill in 1995.

“I was paired with Pavin in my first match, and on the first hole he had about a 55-60 footer for birdie, and he knocked it in. It was the biggest boost of momentum. For me it was as if I had made the putt, I was so excited,” Mickelson admitted. “He and I went on to win that match, and it was a very emotional and very nervous feeling to play that first match. But when he made that putt, it seemed to settle me down.”

Mickelson was man of the match for the US that year, winning three points, three matches, and losing to none.

Phil Mickelson is playing in his eighth Ryder Cup, a clear indicator of the quality of his play since joining the PGA Tour.

“It's an honor to be on that many teams, and I've enjoyed everyone of them,” he said. “My record in the Ryder Cup has not been what I want, and I need to work on that. And so I'll have an eighth opportunity here to see if I can get a few more points in that W column.”

Not far behind him, with a rookie debut in 1997, is Tiger Woods who insists that he enjoys the competition.

“I've always loved playing the Ryder Cup. I've always enjoyed being a part of the team,” he explained. “I don't know where the perception of indifference is because I've always loved it. The team bonding that occurs, getting to know the guys and everyone there that's associated with our team are experiences that you'll never forget and I've created some great friendships because of it.”

It will be up to Mickelson, Woods, Stewart Cink, Jim Furyk, Steve Stricker, and Zach Johnson to pull the rookies through the first two days so that they will be ready to go for singles on Sunday.  The rookies—Rickie Fowler, Jeff Overton, Dustin Johnson, Bubba Watson, and Matt Kuchar—indicate they are up for the occasion.  

“I'm really looking forward to the Ryder Cup. I think it's going to be an unbelievable experience,” Dustin Johnson said recently. “You know, obviously growing up as a kid, you always watch the Ryder Cup, you always wanted to play on the Ryder Cup, so it's a dream come true."

He said the most nervous he’s been to date was on the first tee at the Walker Cup.

“I think I hit before the guy even got my name out,” he said about the nerves. “It's okay, we all have them, and I'm sure I'm going to be real nervous on the first tee at the Ryder Cup, too.”

Never has anyone seemed more pumped up for Ryder Cup than Bubba Watson. 

“That's my Olympics,” he said. “I've wanted to play The Ryder Cup my whole life. I've made many a putts when I was eight and 10 years old to win the Ryder Cup. So why would you not want to play for your country?”

He said he will do anything Pavin asks. 

“I just want to play on the team and I'm going to do everything possible to help the team,” Watson said. “If he asks me to play every day, I'm going to play every day. If he tells me to sit out, I'm going to go cheer on the team and clap for everybody, be at every group.”

No matter what his game is like, he says, he will remain positive.

“What I bring to the table is I want to be there and I have a passion to play there.” Watson continued. “I might play terrible when I get there, but the one thing is I'm never going to pout for being there, I'm never going to put my head down because you are representing your country.”

He and captain’s pick Rickie Fowler are good friends and had dinner the night that the picks were announced. 

“So he's sitting across the table from me while he's—basically the whole team is deciding on what's going on,” Fowler explained about the dinner with Watson.  Although Fowler didn’t know it at the time, Watson was texting Pavin.  Later on, the call came to Fowler that he was a pick.

“It's pretty cool to have the opportunity to go over there and definitely looking forward to it,” Fowler added.

However, there is the issue of uniforms.  Fowler usually wears Oklahoma State orange head to toe on Sundays. 

“There's no orange in the line I don't think,” he said about the Ryder Cup uniforms. “But I am going to get a little haircut.”  He added that he made it through the Walker Cup without wearing orange, and expects to make it through the Ryder Cup. 

Fowler has played Walker Cup with Dustin Johnson.  Jeff Overton though was on a Walker Cup team before Johnson and Fowler were eligible.

“I'm pumped, I'm excited about the Ryder Cup,” Overton said when it looked like he would be on the team. “The next half of the goal would be to figure out a way to go win the USA some points.”

Nerves, crowds, partners, camaraderie, dinners, photo ops, autograph sessions, and more. There will be many new adventures for the rookies, but the best advice for newcomers and veterans alike was surprising. It came from Tiger Woods.

“You know, from the older guys, from Payne (Stewart) to Mark (O’Meara) to everyone that's been on the teams all those years, Freddie (Couples), just get your rest when you can because early in the week there's going to be quite a few functions,” he said.

"Try to get practice in, try to get your workouts out, and it's a pretty full day, and whenever you can shut down, shut down. It's universal through all the guys. Raymond (Floyd) told me the same thing, all the years he played. Just get your rest when you can and be ready come Friday.”