TIGER WOODS OFFICIALLY withdrew himself from Ryder Cup consideration this morning due to injury saying that his “back muscles need to be rehabilitated and healed.”
After a season that has been hampered by injury, one of the reasons for his missed cut at last week’s USPGA Championship, there was still a sense among golf fans that Tom Watson might pick the former world number one.
On paper Tiger’s withdrawal looks like a blow for US captain Tom Watson, especially with Jason Dufner and Matt Kuchar also struggling with injury problems. Having one of the best players ever to have played the game of golf unavailable for your team sounds anything but positive, but, in this case, it very well could be.
Poor record
The Ryder Cup has never been Tiger’s forté. In total he has lost more matches (17) than he has won (13) with three half points along the way. Hardly a record that you’d expect from a man that has won 14 major championships, 18 world golf championships and sat at the top of the world golf rankings for a record 264 weeks.
Tiger sits fourth in the list of most Ryder Cup matches played by members of the US team but in the table of matches lost, he occupies top spot.
Pairing problems
It is a well-known Ryder Cup cliché that one of the US captain’s toughest decisions each year is who to pair Tiger Woods with.
Tiger simply doesn’t fit into a team format. His Ryder Cup singles record on the other hand is impressive, amassing five points from a possible seven. Woods is an individual, he is not a team player. Brought up to be the best golfer in the world he has never been able to properly adapt to playing alongside someone and having to compromise parts of his game to suit his partner. Woods has always been out to win for himself and nobody else.
Since his first Ryder Cup appearance the 38-year-old has had 14 different partners for foursomes and fourball matches. Only in his last three appearances (2006, 2010 and 2012) has he forged any sort of partnership with a particular player.
In 2006 he was relatively successful with Jim Furyk, racking up two wins and two losses while his partnership with Steve Stricker won two points for USA in 2010 but zero out of a possible three in 2012.
Hal Sutton’s infamous decision to pair Woods with long time nemesis Phil Mickelson in 2004 fell flat on its face with the pair losing both of the matches they played in on the opening day.
Woods’s cold manner on the course cannot be appealing to play alongside and certainly wouldn’t serve to encourage younger players in the locker room. Compare that to, say, Ian Poulter in the European dressing room. Poluter shows enormous passion when playing at the Ryder Cup, motivating his compatriots and ultimately bringing the team closer together.
If Watson had made the decision to pick Woods this year he would have been presenting himself with an age-old problem that no US captain has ever really been able to get around.
Media focus
Imagine, after a year of injuries, missed cuts and bad press, Woods was picked to play for the US team; the golfing media in America would have a field day. Given the fact that ESPN brought in ‘Tiger Cam’ (an ESPN3 feed focussed solely on Woods) for both the British Open and USPGA Championship it is difficult to imagine what level the focus would be taken to for the Ryder Cup.
The vast majority of attention would be on Woods, something that would disrupt team spirit in the American camp and play right into the hands of a European team that are already looking vastly superior to their US counterparts.
The US team have only won one of the last six Ryder Cups with one of the sole reasons for Europe’s dominance being team spirit and togetherness. The Americans have always been described as a group of individuals, epitomised by Woods who, even on the regular tour, is not known to socialise with other players much.
Without a doubt Woods’s absence from the US team will be a positive rather than a negative for Captain Watson.
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Woods withdraws himself from Ryder Cup consideration due to injury