Tiger Woods - Vice Captain?

[golferr]

As Zipazoid says Tiger is not the most endearing....... He's never been a team player so why would he be a team leader?  Many more upbeat inspiring players out there to choose from

[WUTiger]

Tiger needs to call Watson and graciously bow out due to injury. I know Tiger wants to help, but I fear plugging him as vice-assistant-captain will only be a distraction. Fill the remaining slots with up-and-coming gunslingers like Ryan Palmer and Keegan Bradley and see what happens.

One key U.S. player already listed will be Jim Furyk. After the 2012 Sunday meltdown of reading putts for 10 minutes and then missing them, I predict Furyk will have either a really good or really bad 2014 RC.

[Gunther]

Tiger needs to call Watson and graciously bow out due to injury. I know Tiger wants to help, but I fear plugging him as vice-assistant-captain will only be a distraction. Fill the remaining slots with up-and-coming gunslingers like Ryan Palmer and Keegan Bradley and see what happens. One key U.S. player already listed will be Jim Furyk. After the 2012 Sunday meltdown of reading putts for 10 minutes and then missing them, I predict Furyk will have either a really good or really bad 2014 RC.

Take the 2nd option for Furyk.

[MEfree]

Fill the remaining slots with up-and-coming gunslingers like Ryan Palmer and Keegan Bradley and see what happens.

One key U.S. player already listed will be Jim Furyk. After the 2012 Sunday meltdown of reading putts for 10 minutes and then missing them, I predict Furyk will have either a really good or really bad 2014 RC.

Ryan Palmer played nicely at the PGA, but Tiger won more last year (5 times) than Palmer has his entire career (3, with the last in 2010). Prior to the PGA he was t58, t55, cut and t32.  He is less than 1 year younger than Tiger (both will be 38 at the time of the RC)- why do you consider him an up-and-coming gunslinger?

FWIW, he is having a decent year overall, so I wouldn't rule him out as a RC selection, but he needs to back up his PGA finish with some good playoff results for me to consider him.  At this point, I would rather go with another Ryan- Moore who has 3 top 10s in his last 5 events plus a t12 at the Open (and a win at the CIMB at the start of the season).

Furyk has had a good, consistent year and I expect solid play from him at the RC but would like to see him get things done early rather than having to make a big putt/shot late..

[iacas]

And let's be honest. It's Tiger. Not the most endearing guy to other pros. How effective could he be in a Co-Captain role?

From what I've read, and everything I've experienced, Tiger's really well liked by his fellow pros. He may practice early or on the far end of the range, but on the putting green, and in the clubhouse/locker room, etc. he's always talking to people, making jokes, etc. Different crowd of guys all the time.

It's not just guys sucking up either. You can tell that, and in my experience, Tiger can too. Hates it.

A bit of a Vijay Singh thing. SUPER well liked by his fellow pros, despised by the media.

Edit: I hadn't thought of this until a few minutes later, but if Tiger was "not the most endearing guy" then his sexual shit would have been outed by someone much, much earlier. The guys liked him. They kept his secrets.

[FarawayFairways]

but there might be small chance he would be invited in such a role if Stricker is named to the 12 man team with the thinking that Tiger could step in last minute in case of injury.

Pretty certain you can't do that. If you think about it logically, it's open to all sorts of abuse if someone is a streaky player and feels a bad day coming on, they just develop an injury.

If memory serves me right both captains put a name in an envelope and one withdrawal precipitates the opening of the envelope to see who the other player is that's withdrawn. One day you suspect it could be abused as there are circumstances under which a small tactical edge might be achieved. There is a theory in Europe that the US did this in 1991 after Steve Pate lost on the Saturday and his injury got mysteriously worse overnight

Last minute = before a ball is struck though? Not sure I'm reading it correctly?

[WUTiger]

Ryan Palmer...  He is less than 1 year younger than Tiger (both will be 38 at the time of the RC)- why do you consider him an up-and-coming gunslinger?

Looks like I got R. Palmer and R. Moore mixed up when I was scanning the PGA stat sheets.

[CarlOwen]

absolutely. I also agree with Iacas.

He may be down right now, but he's the best golfer in this generation, he has unmatched wisdom and experience. He could clearly help U.S win even if he's not playing.

Let us not forget, the man has won 80 golf tournaments, and was #2 last year with 5 PGA tour wins last year.

[FarawayFairways]

I think the most he could do is be called upon to make a speech (Montgomerie used a dying Seve to do this at Celtic Manor)

If he could so clearly help the US to a win, it kind of begs the obvious question of why he's singularly failed to do so this century, when he was continually presented as the team talisman. Indeed, the only time the US did win, he wasn't there. The evidence to date strongly points to him clearly helping the US lose, and none more so than at Medinah

His experience is really in medal play tournaments. He's never managed or captained a team at this level before. He'd be coming very late to the party and probably has the capacity to cause more disruption with the circus that follows him. Tom's got Ray Floyd and Andy North as loyal leiutenants who've been onside from the start of the ride, he'd need to make a decision about how bringing Tiger into the fold is going to impact on the equilibrium of his own management group

There's also the not inconsiderable issue about how Tiger strutting around in a managerial position is going to impact on America's key player in terms of experience and leadership too? I don't think Phil has sounded particularly enthusiastic about playing anyway, but to discover that his best buddy who failed to qualify as a player (something Phil accomplished) is now helping to call the shots is going to go down badly I'd say with a player who the others are going to have to look towards for on course inspiration

Too many cooks etc

The Watson/ Woods dynamic has hardly been a friendly one over the years regardless of what they say about having patched it up. It won't take much for recriminations to start to resurface if things start going wrong in the intensity of an RC

Look America would be better off forgeting Tiger now instead of trying to salvage something from him. Tiger would be doing the US a favour if he took himself out the frame as soon as possible. How can people seriously fine tune their planning and preparation when Tiger Woods's name crops up for every job on offer. Tom has brought a lot of this on himself though, and continues to do so by indulging it. I warned a few months ago that unless Tom could get on top of the Tiger circus it would become disruptive. We see this sort of thing every year in football and observe team dynamics falling apart as there's always the known unknowns that will start impacting now as well which need managing. Tom's had more than enough of them to deal with, without Tiger bloody Woods adding more to the morrass

[MEfree]

Pretty certain you can't do that. If you think about it logically, it's open to all sorts of abuse if someone is a streaky player and feels a bad day coming on, they just develop an injury.

If memory serves me right both captains put a name in an envelope and one withdrawal precipitates the opening of the envelope to see who the other player is that's withdrawn. One day you suspect it could be abused as there are circumstances under which a small tactical edge might be achieved. There is a theory in Europe that the US did this in 1991 after Steve Pate lost on the Saturday and his injury got mysteriously worse overnight

Last minute = before a ball is struck though? Not sure I'm reading it correctly?

By Last minute, I guess I mean anytime after the team is finalized up until the matches start.  What happens if someone like Kuchar hopes to be ready to play but decides a few days before the RC that he is not ready to go?  Seems like Stricker, in his current role, would be in perfect position to fill in or would the Americans be stuck playing with 11 vs 12 until Sunday when there would only be 11 singles matches using the procedure you described??

[FarawayFairways]

My understanding is that Stricker can come in (as could any reserve) but once the first shot is struck, that's your team

If memory serves me right (hopefully with a bit of irony) Tom Watson withdrew in 1981 (or 1979) on the eve of the match for the birth of his first child. The idea of Tom replacing Kuchar does appeal to me (more so than Tiger or Stricker)

If a player is injured during the match however and withdraws, then the team plays with 11 until the singles, and the final single is then scratched to a half

As I said, it happened in 1991 when Steve Pate was allegedly injured in a car crash on the eve of the match. Dave Stockton had the option of withdrawing and replacing him but chose not to. Well if Pate was really as badly injured as we were led to believe it should have been an easy decision. As it happened Pate played the final fourball on the Saturday and lost (he can't have been that injured). Overnight the American's took the view that Pate was likely to lose his singles and that with the match poised 8-8, it was decided that Pate's injury had deteriorated and he was withdrawn and therefore denied David Gilford (the European name in the envelope) the chance to play in a RC singles match (not so sure that an injured Pate wouldn't have beaten a shellshocked Gilford myself) it's not as if he'd been smashed down in the fouballs

I think the main complaint that the Europeans had was that if Stockton was testing Pate's injury he should have done so in the singles when he would have gauranteed Gilford's participation. If he had any serious doubts, he should have replaced Pate on the Thursday evening/ Friday morning. Instead he elected to test Pate in a fourball where there was always a chance that his partner could carry a wounded passenger and get away with it

I have little doubt that Stockton's tactics were just that, tactics that didn't observe the original spirit. I also have little doubt that they were sound from a Machivellian perspective, and wouldn't be completely comfortable to state that there was no way Europe (or some Europeans at least) would be incapable of doing the same

Does anyone know what the latest is on Kuchar incidentally? Seems to be quiet on that front. The more of these established falling (and we have toassuem Dufner's a non-runner now) the more likely that Tom will turn to Woods

[FarawayFairways]

Well he's officially withdrawn now and finally finished this soap opera. Time for the US to buckle down and concentrate on what it's got and not what it would like to have