PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. – Rocco Mediate is honest about his Ryder Cup future.
He doesn’t have one.
Mediate knows his chances of a The US Ryder Cup team roster spot ended a long time ago – around the time Tiger Woods’ final putt fell into the The Monday playoff of the 2008 US Open. He never played on an American Ryder Cup team. Never compete for the stars and stripes. Never felt the pressure on a 6-footer to extend your game. And maybe it’s for the best.
“It would have been the antichrist,” he says with a smile.
But Rocco he knows golf. He has played professionally for more than three decades, and has been obsessed with the history and traditions of the sport for a long time. He might not know what it feels like to be in the team room, but he knows that success and failure in golf are decided in unusual ways. And this week, at the PURE Insurance Championship at Pebble Beach, he has some ideas about how the Americans can turn things around after back-to-back Ryder Cup losses despite what many see as a talent advantage.
“I think it’s overblown, exaggerated and completely over-analyzed,” Mediate told GOLF on Saturday afternoon at Pebble. “First of all, the Ryder Cup is an exhibition. It’s okay, it doesn’t matter in the history of the sport. Enjoy it. Make jokes. Have a good time with the boys.”
Mediate says he has been amazed to witness the growth of the Ryder Cup spectacle over the past two decades. At the same time, he was amazed by the lack of innovation on the American side in the same period.
“We continue to have the same captains, the same. Find someone else, do something else, change it. But they will not be,” Mediate said. “Love Jim Furyk. Love the boys. Love him – but change something. Same assistant captain. Same everything.”
But not everyone shares Mediate’s sense of fire and brimstone. Among the players in the Pebble field this week is Justin Leonard, who has arrived as assistant captain for Jim Furyk’s team next fall in Ireland. Leonard said he and Furyk have already made a big effort to innovate the approach of the American Ryder Cup, investing in new statistics and research teamsa new points system and develop new plans to improve continuity between US team play events. At the center of the new strategy of the United States is the goal of building a “program” – returning to the sense of Europeans of continuity and coherence between events.
“We’ve changed our stats and data analysts and we’ve also changed our points structure, and trust me, a lot of time and effort and phone calls have gone into those decisions,” Leonard said. GOLF. “The PGA of America wants us to have a little better playbook, so that there’s more continuity from team to team, as well as having similar players and all that.”
Of course, an early test of that new game plan will come next week in Chicago, where Team USA will reconvene for the biennial Presidents Cup game. Many Ryder Cup critics have suggested that the Presidents Cup, which is operated by the PGA Tour rather than the PGA of America, represents a great missed opportunity for American team golf, serving as an impediment between the parameters of team golf as opposed to a continuation between them. Leonard was quick to point out that while he has no formal ability in the Presidents Cup, the experience could be useful for Ryder Cup leadership in other ways.
“The fact that Jim (Furyk) is here, Keegan (Bradley) is here, and Brandt (Snedeker) has been around teams and Webb (Simpson) as well,” Leonard said. “You know, I’m sure there will be some things, some good things that we’ll take from next week to make things go in a better direction.”
While the Presidents Cup provides a rare data point on the performance of team golf to the leadership of the American Ryder Cup, there could be even more to learn from the players on the other side of the ledger. More than three decades of Ryder and Presidents Cup experience was on display at Pebble Beach this week, and among that crew, there was no shortage of ideas about the recent run of American wrestling.
“Europe has historically been disadvantaged, and that group that comes together – they grew up together and played a lot of golf together and competed together, so maybe they’re a little bit tighter,” said Henrik Stenson, owner of five Ryder Cup appearances from the Euros, with a smile. “Maybe the US team played more college golf and they’re trying to beat you more than the Euros – I don’t know – but clearly there was a good team spirit from the European team for many times.”
Stuart Appleby, owner of five Presidents Cup starts for the Internationals, suggested that the problem could be less American disagreement and more European cohesion.
“Team USA has a lot of desire to win, which is nice, but you have to go out of your way,” Appleby said. “The Europeans want to win as bad, but they have a warrior mentality. They are totally divorced from the result.”
But the unifying theory among those speaking was simple: The harder the U.S. tries to squeeze success out of its team golf appearances, the more elusive success will become.
“If I’m the captain, I’m not in a horse cart around. I’m going to sit in the locker room, watch TV, maybe have a Diet Coke,” Mediate said. “I’ll say to them, ‘Guys, listen – look. If you don’t like clothes, play with your clothes. It shouldn’t make a difference in your life. It should just be fun.”
Mediate did not expect calls from the leadership of the United States in the near future, and it is quite certain that he will not be on the list of Christmas cards PGA of America. But after the lackluster performances of back-to-back Ryder Cups and back-to-back-back-to-back Presidents Cups closer than expected, the only bad ideas are those that are not said.
“People will say, ‘That’s the stupidest thing,'” Mediate said. “But then you have to remember,”Wait a minute – this is not working.'”