Montgomerie puts all the right pieces together, McDowell is worldwide player-of-the-year; Remembering Maury Allen

The obvious topic for today is The Ryder Cup, which finally ended on Monday in Wales. At least I think it ended. David Feherty, who was the (fall down funny) dinner speaker last night at our sixth annual Bruce Edwards Celebrity Golf Classic isn’t sure that it was actually played.

“I lost track of it completely with all the stops and starts,” he said. “Didn’t watch a minute of the singles so now I’m going to go write a column about it.”

If anyone can do it, Feherty can.

The matches themselves—when finally played—were, as always, great theater. The U.S. grabbed the lead; Europe roared back and appeared headed for a comfortable win and then the U.S. rallied late, forcing Graeme McDowell to make one of the all-time big moment birdies you will ever see to finally wrap things up for Europe, 14 and ½ to 13 and ½. Remember if Hunter Mahan had been able to pull out a TIE in that final match with McDowell, the U.S. would have retained the Cup. Mahan closed to within one down after birdieing the 15th hole only to have McDowell, with the pressure of an entire continent riding on his shoulders, roll in a birdie putt at the 16th that put him in control, two-up with two to play.

Jim Furyk will win the PGA Tour’s player-of-the-year award. Great guy and good for him. But it says here that McDowell is the player-of-the-year worldwide: He won the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, won another tournament in Europe (at Celtic Manor as a matter of fact) and then won the clinching point of The Ryder Cup. Game, set, match right there.

The most important thing at any Ryder Cup of course is which TEAM wins. That result becomes a part of each captain’s golf legacy. Corey Pavin didn’t do a bad job running the U.S. team—other than letting his wife run amok in the run-up to the matches—but Colin Montgomerie did a better job for Europe.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I like Colin Montgomerie. He can be whiny, prickly and difficult. His personal life is, from what I can tell as an outsider, a mess. That doesn’t exactly make him unique in golf right now, does it? But he’s also disarmingly honest; lives up to his mistakes when asked about them; has a very sharp sense of humor and, in my experiences with him has gone out of his way to answer questions honestly and with humor.

So, if you hate him, fine. If you want to call him Mrs. Doubtfire—which Feherty put on him years ago—fine. I like the guy. This was a very big weekend in his life. With all the rumors swirling around his personal life—you think Tiger Woods has had it bad, try living in Great Britain in the midst of a personal crisis—and with Europe playing at home and favored (not by me I picked the U.S. to win) the pressure on Monty to win the Cup back was huge. Throw in the fact that his non-buddy Nick Faldo failed to win the Cup in 2008 and you have another reason he wanted to win so badly. (Monty was asked once years ago why he and Faldo were paired together so often in Ryder Cup. He smiled and said: “because no one else wants to play with either one of us.”)

Down 6-4 after two sessions and lengthy rain delays, Monty put all the right pieces in place for the third session and Europe won 5 and ½ of 6 points over two days. That decided this Ryder Cup. As is almost always the case, the U.S. won the singles, just not by enough. Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson, MIA during four-ball play, showed up and won their matches. Tiger Woods, who had been good but not great, got on a roll and dusted Francesco Molinari (I think it was Francesco, I know it was a Molinari for sure) and Steve Stricker and Jeff Overton—the most pleasant U.S. surprise of the weekend—closed out really strong weeks with wins.

When Rickie Fowler finished with four straight birdies to steal a halve from the other Molinari—I think it was Eduardo—the U.S. suddenly had a chance. McDowell saw to it that those chances and hopes were dashed. Still, the case can be made that this was the best U.S. performance in Europe since Tom Watson’s team went to The Belfry in 1993 and won.

Watson was also at The Bruce Edwards event yesterday as he is every year. He remembered telling his players on the eve of that Ryder Cup the following: “I know you’re going to be nervous on the first tee tomorrow. Your legs may shake. That’s what this event does to guys. Remember this though: their legs are going to be shaking too.”

He also famously put as his thought for the day on the Americans schedule for that first morning: “Remember, everything they invented, we perfected.” The players liked that.

One other Watson note: He was asked during a Q+A if he thought Tiger Woods would come back and he said yes, he thought he would, that he would still break Jack Nicklaus’s record by winning at least 19 majors. Then he said this: “His swing still isn’t there right now. Of course if he came to my farm in Kansas I could fix him in about 15 minutes.”

Obviously he thinks he sees something in Woods’ swing that can be corrected quickly. I didn’t ask for details because that wasn’t what interested me. Instead I said, “how much would you charge for a lesson like that?”

Watson paused for a moment and then said: “I’d ask him to give $1 million to ALS research.”

Okay all you Woods supporters, get the word out: Watson will fix Tiger’s swing in return for a $1 million contribution to ALS research. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

Back to The Ryder Cup: Kudos to Europe and to Montgomerie for coming through in the heat and winning. But, even though it’s a cliché, Pavin was right when he said the U.S. had nothing to be ashamed of when all was said and done. Except maybe his wife’ choice of rain gear.

******

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention here the death of Maury Allen. If you are from New York, you probably know the name and you’ve almost certainly read him at some point. Maury was a long-time reporter and columnist for The New York Post and, later, the Gannett Westchester papers. He wrote at least 30 books, most of them on baseball. One of the first books I ever read was a book Maury wrote called, “Now Wait a Minute Casey,” which was a chronicle of the Mets first three (horrific) seasons.

Even as a kid, I couldn’t stop laughing. It was a wonderful read and reading it may have been the first time it crossed my mind that sportswriting might be a fun thing to do someday. Of course back then I was planning to PLAY for the Mets, not cover them.

When I came up just a tad shy of The Major Leagues—I did start in high school so I guess I JUST missed—and ended up as a sportswriter, I had the chance to meet and get to know Maury. You will never meet a nicer or more generous person. I still remember where and when I first met him: It was the day before the U.S. Open began in 1981. It was my first Open as the lead reporter for The Post and I showed up a day early to see if anyone was around I could write about.

Sure enough, John McEnroe, fresh off his win over Bjorn Borg in The Wimbledon final—not the classic 1980 match, the one a year later that McEnroe won—was practicing on the empty grandstand court with Peter Fleming, his doubles partner. I walked in there and saw Maury standing there watching. I introduced myself.

“Ever met McEnroe?” he asked. I hadn’t.

When McEnroe and Fleming took a break, Maury walked over with me in tow. “Hey Maury,” McEnroe shouted. “Did they kick you off baseball forever during the strike?”

“John, the Mets are so bad they sent me to cover you,” Maury answered.

Then he said. “I want you to meet a friend of mine. You should give him a few minutes when you’re finished.”

Maury and I had been friends at that point for five minutes. McEnroe talked to me when he was finished and, of course, wrote my entire story for me. He and I went on to have a very good relationship. Maury Allen and I stayed friends until he passed away over the weekend. I will miss him but I will never forget his work, his laugh or his generosity.

The Ryder Cup is finally here - why I think the US will win; The good side of sportsmanship displayed by middle school coach

The Ryder Cup begins tomorrow—finally. I love The Ryder Cup. I love the drama, the nerves, the emotion that it brings out in players and (most of the time) fans. What I could live without is all the yammering that goes on prior to the matches beginning.

I mean, seriously, did anyone really think there was any chance Corey Pavin wasn’t going to pick Tiger Woods if he didn’t finish in the top eight in the points standings? The only way Woods wasn’t going to be chosen was if he didn’t WANT to be chosen and this was the one year when he actually needed to play. Why? Because he needs to wear ‘USA,’ on his back as part of his image-rehab. Because he’s had a horrible year (for him) and this is a way to salvage something—anything—from a lost year. Because he’s played on ONE winning Ryder Cup team and a lot of people have noticed that the only U.S. team to win in this century was the one (2008) that didn’t have Woods on the team.

So, Woods was going to be picked and he was going to play. All of Pavin’s Hamlet-like, ‘to pick him or not to pick him,’ was pure silliness. Of course he was going to pick him.

The Woods-Rory McIlroy thing is also much ado about little. McIlroy made the comment that he would love to face Woods in singles in mid-August shortly after the worst performance of Woods’ career (T-78 at Firestone; if there had been a cut he would have missed it). I know McIlroy a little bit and he’s not the kind of kid who goes around trying to sound cocky. He was just being honest basically saying, ‘right now the guy isn’t playing very well.’

Naturally the tabloid media in Great Britain wants to turn this into a cage match. Woods, who learned from Michael Jordan that you take anything resembling a slight and use it for motivation is smiling and saying he’d like to play McIlroy too as if he’s going to show him who is boss. Heck, he might very well do that. But let’s not act as if McIlroy is somehow trying to get into Woods face or his head. He was being honest. The more we (the media) take honest comments and try to make them into more than what they are, the less likely we are to continue to get honest comments.

Now that the matches are finally—Thank God—beginning we can all stop speculating on who is going to play with whom and on whether Woods and Phil Mickelson will be able to smile in one another’s presence. All I ask of the two of them is to NOT act as if their dislike of one another is some sort of media concoction. It’s not.

That doesn’t mean they can’t be part of a successful U.S. team. My feeling all along has been this notion that Europe is the favorite is crazy. YES, they have home court advantage and that’s a big deal. The U.S. has won in Europe ONCE since 1983 and that was in the 1993 when Tom Watson was captain and played a hunch on Saturday with his team about to get blown out and put John Cook and Chip Beck—who hadn’t played yet—out in the first four ball match of the afternoon against Colin Montgomerie and Nick Faldo. Cook and Beck won the match one-up and the U.S. ended up outscoring the Euros 11 and ½ to 5 and ½ from that point on to win, 15-13.

Pavin should keep Watson’s gamble in mind. He has spent a lot of time consulting with players and his various assistant captains—including my pal Paul Goydos (whose comment on the Lisa Pavin-created U.S. uniforms was, “Those outfits might look okay on Tiger and Dustin Johnson, I’m not so sure how they’ll look on me.”)—about who should play with whom and who should sit out and who shouldn’t sit out.

That’s all well and good. But you have to have a gut feeling for your players as the matches go on. Watson knew the combinations he was using in 1993 weren’t working. He sat both Fred Couples and Davis Love III that Saturday afternoon and played Cook and Beck because he felt Couples and Love were fighting themselves emotionally. In fact, while those matches were going on, Love took Couples aside and gave him a talking-to about getting down on himself that also proved to be critical to the final outcome.

There may come a moment when Pavin has to do something that doesn’t seem to make sense: sit Woods out perhaps if he isn’t playing well; put together a crazy pairing like Rickie Fowler and Bubba Watson—something. But he better be ready when that moment comes because Colin Montgomerie most assuredly will be totally ready if it comes for him. You can say what you want about Monty—and most things have been said about him—but he has been a superb Ryder Cup player and he understands this competition as well as anyone. His players may not think he’s the greatest guy who ever lived but they will surely respect him and follow him with The Ryder Cup at stake.

You see the secret to European success dating back to 1985 (Europe is 7-4-1—retaining the cup in 1989 when the tie occurred) since then is simple: The Euros wanted to win more. They were willing to put aside personal difference to band together for one week every two years to prove that they were underrated—which they often were. What helped the U.S. in 2008 was two things: People pretty much assumed Europe would win because the only U.S. win since 1993 had been at Brookline in 1999 when Europe simply fell apart in the singles on Sunday and Paul Azinger didn’t have to deal with Woods. (This is the part where you JF doesn’t like Tiger-posters start typing).

Woods is 10-13-2 in Ryder Cup play. But that’s not been the real problem. Most U.S. players of this generation have mediocre to lousy Ryder Cup records. The problem is Woods never really wanted to be there and everyone knew it. That’s why he was so hard to find partners for until Jim Furyk and Steve Stricker stepped up and said, ‘hey, I’ll do it.’ Woods brings tension into every room he walks into. It is just who he is. As someone once said, ‘joy is not his thing.’ Even when he wins joy isn’t the emotion he really feels: relief, yes; enjoying beating the other guy, sure. But joy? No. He’s always onto the next thing—which is part of why he’s been so great.

Woods wasn’t there in 2008 because he was hurt. Azinger had a bunch of guys who just wanted to WIN to shut up all the people who kept asking why the U.S. never won anymore. This year’s team doesn’t have that but it SHOULD have a motivated Woods because of the past year of his life, his past Ryder Cup record AND what happened without him in 2008.

That’s why I think the U.S. will win. I also think Lee Westwood is playing hurt; Padraig Harrington is playing poorly and Europe has more rookies (six) than the U.S. (five). Of course Westwood and Harrington could shake off their troubles for three days and the Welsh crowd might roar Europe to victory. But I don’t think so. I think the U.S. wins by the same score it won by in 1993, 15-13. And if Europe wins, blame me for jinxing the U.S.

*****

I often point out appalling behavior here because there is so much of it to point out in sports. But not always. On Wednesday I went to the volleyball game between middle schoolers from The McLean School and their counterparts from Holton Arms. As you might have guessed, my daughter Brigid plays for McLean. The teams split the first two games and the final game (played to 15) was tied at 10-10 when one of the McLean girls served into the net. That put Holton Arms up 11-10 and gave them the serve—a big advantage at this level because a successful serve often means a point won.

But as the ball was being rolled to the other end, the Holton Arms coach stopped the game and went to talk to the referee. He had been trying to substitute before the point started and the girl he was subbing in didn’t get onto the court in time. Thus, his team was a girl short when the ball was served. By rule that gave the point—and the serve—to McLean. The ref hadn’t noticed, neither had anyone else. The coach did and he called it—on himself and his team. McLean won, 15-13.

I made a point after the game of telling the coach, after asking him what had happened because I didn’t know either, how impressed I was. I then made a point of explaining to Brigid what had happened. Sometimes kids don’t get things like that. Brigid did. “There should be more coaches like him,” she said.

As usual, she was right.

*Updated* This week's radio segments (Tony Kornheiser Show, The Sports Reporters, The Gas Man)

Wednesday I joined The Sports Reporters in the normal timeslot (5:25 ET on Wednesday's). Click the permalink, then the link below, to listen to the segment from this week. Among the topics discussed was my new young reader's book released earlier this week that was set around the Army-Navy game along the viability of a non-fiction book on the Ryder Cup. After the book talk, we talked a great deal the Ryder Cup -- from matchups, to history to sportsmanship potential.

Click here to listen to the segment: The Sports Reporters

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I also joined The Gas Man in the normal 8:25ET timeslot on Wednesday. This week we discussed the 5th book in the young reader's series that was released before moving onto more talk surrounding what's going on in sports this week.

Click here to listen to the segment: The Gas Man

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This week we switched my weekly appearance on the Tony Kornheiser Show to Wednesday, and it was another normal great discussion. Before the fireworks began we talked briefly about Tony picking up the check for dinner and my new young reader's book. After that, we spent the majority of the time discussing college football and the BCS -- you know my position, and Tony is a BCS apologist.

Click here to listen to the segment (my segment begins at the 14:30 mark): The Tony Kornheiser Show