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Anyone else think it would be interesting or like to see a Ryder Cup with ONLY captains picks? I think we could possibly take a better team into it. I mean, the American team just to inexperienced. The only guys that really did much of anything was Tiger, Furyk (off and on), Cink, Henry (off and on), Johnson (one day). Everyone else did next to nothing. Majority of the rookies were just terrible. I realize they played their way on according to the system, but they were not ready, and frankly shouldn't have been there. They all might be great players down the road, but not now.

I mean, if you win one tournament and then make a another top ten, you're in the Ryder Cup. To me winning one of the smaller tournaments on the schedule doesn't prove much except that you can get your butt kicked in the Ryder Cup. Look at JB Holmes, he won one tournament and then did absolutely nothing the rest of the year and was like 10th in the ryder cup point standings most of the year.

I think we need to take guys like Davis, Freddie, Daly, Fred Funk, etc... I know, these guys are not at the top of the money list...but could we really have gotten our butts kicked anymore than we did? Lets take some guys that are crowd favorites and that everyone wants to see playing. I really don't even get intersted watching Wetterick, Verplank, Taylor, etc...

^^ thats a good point, because we know we would compete that way, europe gets an extra week to pick too

I think chris riley would of been a good player, he always looks like hes having fun, and remember when he was paired with tiger...guy just talked and talked kinda like sergio. Its going to take that type of people to win this thing again. stars with 30 million in the bank don't care if USA wins or not, they got the money. Same with MW shes got the money who cares if I win. Heck bring college players over there and I bet it would be closer then it was this year.

I'm not sure that all 12 picks should be captain's picks, but certainly should be more picks at the captain's discretion. Of course, maybe that captain will pick Verplank and not play him.

Maybe we should have North America vs. Europe (maybe Weir would get better and could join in the beatings we are taking?)

It may not be a bad thing to have the top five (I know that includes Mickelson, but he can't always play this poorly, can he?) on the list go - they have normally won multiple tournaments or been consistently high finishers, then have captain's picks. That way you get -a. experience; b. desire and c. winners. You will still have guys trying to make the top 5 (or you could do seven and have 5 captain's picks), but everyone else trying their hardest to be good enough to be a captain's pick. In a way, this would be a better system anyway, because the drive to be in the top 5 would be so tremendous, the guys who don't make it may be better for the effort. You wouldn't have to worry so much about the one win and hang on crew because there isn't anything to hang on to. The captain can select not only proven players, but guys who are getting hot going into the cup.
And it should be this way across the board, with the Euro team being allowed to do the same, in all fairness; though their new formula is obviously great for them.
All this being said, I don't know what Americans you could have picked for this team that could have improved our chances. This Euro team was awesome! They may have beaten a president's cup style team with the rest of the best in the world including the American's top players...

BTW, anyone also notice our other sports teams floundering in international competition? USA basketball (mens and womens), soccer, hockey, baseball, tennis, etc. have all faired poorly in world matches. Has the age of entitlement caught up with our athletes? Are we feeding them too much of the "the U.S. is the greatest at everything" so they don't believe they have to work at it as hard? Basketball bothers me the most because that is purely an American game and we aren't any longer the best in the world at it...

Basketball lost its way of being a team sport - too much about the individual. While it is starting to find its way back, it has a long road ahead.

Golf has a lot of the same problem. If you watch a PGA Tour event, the players hardly interact with each other, barely with their caddies and even less with the paying crowd. I have been to several pro-ams, marshalled some tournaments, and watched thousands of hours of coverage and they all seem to be focused on nothing but what they are doing - while this is not necessarily a bad thing - they make money-, it is one of the primary reasons the Europeans dominate in the team-play of Ryder Cup.

The Europeans seem to enjoy the other's company. They stay in the same hotels when they play, eat together, are involved with the other members of the tour. If you watched the coverage, both in Ireland and in Detroit, the Europeans looked like they want to be there. On the first tee in Ireland, only Tiger Woods looked comfortable (maybe he shouldn't have since he dunked it in the lake) and the rest looked sick, petrified or indifferent.

The comraderie of the team sports has yet to find its place in American golf. It is going to take a lot more that simply better players. Perhaps, we need more team events. A couple of two-man best ball or alternate shot events. Tim Finchem is only perpetuating the problem with the FedEx Cup (I think it will be fun to watch, assuming that the top players play well, embrace and care about it - otherwise it will be a pathetic dog trying to compete with football). This will focus players more on being intensely concentrated on themselves - do we really need golfers to be more self-centered (this statement is not intended to diminish the charitable actions taken by so many tour players or of the tour itself).

It's because the rest of the world is getting better and the US isn't except for a few select people. Also the US has always had this mentality that we can just show up and win with pretty much every sport or anyhthing we do and it doesn't work like that.

With Davis and Freddie and Fred, we probably would have lost almost as bad. Remember Funk and Love played last time. We just don't have the talent we used to in the USA.

And Chris Riley is the first to go for the exit.. Phil is probalby a close 2nd...

or America and include Angel Cabrera and Camillo Villegas...

Yeah you're right, but it would have been better to watch at least.

or as bad as a couple of those played, maybe get Lorena Ochoa!

They need to do something to the point system. Brett Wetterich and Vaughn Taylor and JJ Henry just didn't belong. Flawed system.

How does Cink, ranked 22nd in the world not make the team? Should Lehman have to field a team with the 3 rookies above, all ranked in the 60s in the world rankings and then be forced to use a captains pick on Cink?

I mentioned this the other day. 15 players ranked ahead of Wetterich on the world golf rankings list, did not make the US team. And most all of them are noticeably better than Wetterich at the mere sight of their name, especially when considering the pressure they will be under.

Where did Sean O'Hair finish on the final US Ryder Cup points? What about Oberholser? I wish both of those inexperienced players had made it instead of Henry or Taylor. O'Hair can play.

I agree. I thought Henry played well except for that three putt he had that lost the point, but it's not like that would have mattered at. But as far as Taylor and Wetterich, terrible. Taylor just looked scared to death.

It definitely would not be worse have everybody as captain's picks.