Golf Gear News

American Ryder Cup Players Don't Care

Here in the United States we don’t understand the rest of the world’s love for soccer (okay, football everywhere else). It is also obvious to this writer that the Americans don’t have any love for the Ryder Cup either.

Captain Lehman talks all about teamwork, but the reality is that we really don’t care. Our Ryder Cup “team” is made up of a group of guys that compete weekly to beat each other. They don’t know how to cooperate. That’s not why they play the game. Maybe when they were in college they played for the love of the game, but with tournament purses over $1 million for the winner, it’s all about the money. The Ryder Cup might be interesting to the Europeans, but it doesn’t fill the top American stars’ wallets and takes away two weeks from making money.

The top players like Tiger, Incorporated & Phil, Incorporated are money-making machines. A recent article in Ad Age mentioned that Tiger made $87 million last year. So far, he’s also earned more than $500 million during his 10 years on tour. Why does he care if his team wins the Ryder Cup? I wouldn’t.

Let’s take the USA Basketball team during the Olympics. For years we were satisfied having the top college players go for the gold. If we won, great. If we didn’t, maybe next time. Then, we said, let’s dominate by allowing professionals to play. Now, we are always expected to win. Yet, there are times when the best players in the world lose to a bunch of no-name, second tier, pro-wannabees. Why is that? Because both the Olympics and the Ryder Cup are actually “team” competitions.

There’s no “I” in team, but there sure is an “I” in Tiger and Phil. The Americans, especially the icons of golf, aren’t a patriotic lot. They may love their country, but if it keeps them away from a tournament weekend payday, why waste two weeks playing for just travel expenses?

posted by Golf Gear News @ 10:01 AM