Ryder Cup: Corey Pavin Do Not Have The Team That Can Beat Europe

This Friday is going to hurt on Corey Pavin. Actually, it is going to hurt on a whole team of American golfers. One thing is to come to Europe and try to win for the first time since 1993 – that’s hard enough. But not to put your best players out in front against the strongest European team since 2004, is more uphill than good is.

Pavin started OK with Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson, but not even this pairing – the best one the US captain has made for the Friday fourballs – is guaranteed a triumph. If they get away with half a point against Lee Westwood and Martin Kaymer, they should be happy.

The fact is that the US needs to go all in from the word go to create some momentum, if they do not want to be run over the next three days. That fact was left out somewhere in the American strategy plan.

Leaving Jim Furyk out on day one when the US team is hard up on routine and strength is a cardinal mistake, and putting Bubba Watson and Jeff Oveton out in the last ball is like asking for trouble. On top of that they get to meet Padraig Harrington and Luke Donald.

While the Europeans has a billion team versions to choose from that will all be lethal, Pavin really has to stack his cards carefully, if he wants to have a small chance of keeping up until the singles on Sunday. Bringing Tiger Woods along to Wales was not a smart move to begin with, and pairing him with Steve Stricker (just because they did well in the recreational President’s Cup last year), was not that smart either. However, the truth is that it would probably be hard to find anyone that could make a fierce couple in Ryder Cup together with Tiger.

Stewart Cink and Matt Kuchar sound somewhat stable on paper, but then again, when they are put up against Rory McIlroy and Graeme McDowell, it becomes a fragile pairing.

But back to Tiger and Stricker. Ian Poulter looked like a cat licking cream when he and Ross Fisher drew just that American pairing, and that alone ought to scare the US team just a little bit. We are not talking Stephen Ames or Rory Sabbatini caught in Tigers backyard. We are talking a top tuned Ian Poulter, with four victories in four matches at Valhalla in 2008 – and we are talking on European soil. Try real hard to go to sleep and dream up a happy American ending on that encounter.

Ready to take over in the afternoon, are players like the Molinari Brothers. That sounds like something out of a gangster flick, and I'm quite sure the Milanese world champions will be ready to execute whoever gets in their way in the foursomes. And don’t forget Miguel Angel Jiménez and Iceberg Peter Hanson.

Hanson might be the most unstable card Europe has to begin with, as he did not get to test his game up to the Ryder Cup during to a lung infection, but even he has won twice this year – one time less than Jiménez.

And who does the US team have in store for the afternoon – if they are all being used, that is? Rickie Fowler, Zack Johnson, Hunter Mahan and Jeff Overton. Great players any day of the week, but what about this special week?

McIlroy, without a female partner this week, left the scene at the opening ceremony arm in arm with McDowell and his wife. Woods left alone with his hands in his pockets. That alone ought to tell you the difference between these two teams. Should the Europeans – against all odds – get in trouble this weekend, they will have an instrument extra to rely on that the Americans don’t have: Each other.