The case for delaying Ryder Cup captain's picks
Look at the bottom of the Tour Championship leaderboard. You'll find three American Ryder Cup team members among the last five names, including Hunter Mahan and Webb Simpson, two of Tom Watson's three wild-card picks. The other pick, Keegan Bradley, didn't qualify for the playoff finale in Atlanta.
Meanwhile, Billy Horschel is in contention for a third consecutive week. After giving away a chance to win the Deutsche Bank Championship on the 72nd hole, he came back the next week to win the BMW Championship at Cherry Hills. On the back of three strong rounds at East Lake, Horschel not only finds himself again in position to win but with world No. 1 Rory McIlroy in the final group on Sunday.
Chris Kirk wasn't on Tom Watson's radar until he won the Deutsche Bank Championship on Labor Day. However, Watson favored Simpson and his ability to gel emotionally with a finicky Bubba Watson over the hyper-stoic Kirk. The Georgia product is four back heading into Sunday with an off chance of snagging the Tour Championship, FedEx Cup and its $10 million bounty.
Had Watson been given longer to evaluate his choices, would he still have picked the three he did? Just some of them? Watson won't say, but it's hard not to see the juxtaposition of players that were picked for the team against the ones staying home when the U.S. team heads to Gleneagles.
There's no reason not to give future captains all the time they need to make their choices. In fact, captains should be allowed to wait until the week prior the Ryder Cup to announce their wild-card selections. Affording captains the opportunity to name their picks anytime after the automatic qualifiers are announced adds intrigue to the picks and gives the maximum time to evaluate players. And it's not as though the teams are traveling by boat; the charter jet will be fueled up and ready to go regardless of which dozen players get on it.
Given that each of the last two Ryder Cups has been decided by a point, any potential edge is worth pursuing including going to the very cliff of the PGA Tour season to finalize the team.
