No matter how lopsided scores get on the Presidents Cup, U.S. captain Davis Love III might be too sporting to get a head begin on jotting down the thanks due in his victory speech.
It guarantees to be a prolonged checklist since each member of his team may have contributed factors to the ledger by Sunday, to not point out the caddies, host membership officers, backroom assistants, and the phalanx of EVPs, SVPs and lowly VPs who’ll descend from PGA Tour HQ for the closing ceremony. Yet it will be remiss of Love to not single out for faint reward Greg Norman, a one-man Superfund clean-up crew who has performed for the U.S. what successive captains and a activity drive couldn’t: decontaminate the team room dynamics which have undermined it for many years.
DAY 2: Americans extend lead after Friday’s four-ball session
DAY 1: U.S. holds on for early lead after Thursday foursomes
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Postmortems of this Presidents Cup will rightly observe that the International aspect was depleted by the strikes to LIV Golf of gamers like Cameron Smith, Joaquin Niemann and Louis Oosthuizen.
While that’s indeniable, it stays debatable what impression these losses actually had for the reason that Internationals weren’t precisely using a scorching streak earlier than the defectors signed on to work for a Saudi regime extra accustomed to deploying groups of hitmen than of golfers. Saudi Arabia has been accused of wide-ranging human rights abuses, together with politically motivated killings, torture, compelled disappearances and inhumane remedy of prisoners. And members of the royal household and Saudi authorities had been accused of involvement within the homicide of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist.
Fairness to Trevor Immelman calls for acknowledging that issues would seemingly be extra aggressive had he been in a position to name on these lacking stars. But it’s clear that LIV’s most vital impression on the 14th Presidents Cup isn’t a detrimental one on the Internationals, however a constructive one on the Americans. The U.S. team is clearly having fun with itself at Quail Hollow, however that doesn’t owe solely to the rating. Sure, a romp breeds good humor, however it is a group flush with real camaraderie and wholly comfy with one another.
It’s simple to miss simply how lengthy interpersonal toxicity has been an accepted a part of the U.S. team room. The chill (and occasional distaste) between Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson loomed giant throughout Europe’s Ryder Cup dominance in first dozen years of this century. Mickelson’s position in hobbling U.S. squads got here to a head like a pustule in 2014 at Gleneagles, culminating in a press convention throughout which he piloted a Greyhound over Tom Watson’s back whereas posturing as a well-intentioned onlooker.
Four years later in Paris, eleven members of the Stars and Stripes discovered themselves asking ‘Pourquoi, Patrick?’ after Reed publicly blamed the team’s drubbing—and his personal dropping document—on skipper Jim Furyk and Jordan Spieth. Not content material to be a scourge on one team, Reed then put the ’19 Presidents Cup aspect within the defensive place of getting to make gentle of his highly questionable behavior in a Bahamas bunker days earlier. Cobbling collectively the looks of cohesion is usually a compromising course of.
The ambiance within the Ryder Cup locker room final 12 months at Whistling Straits was maybe much less poisonous however no much less a distraction owing to the callow feud between Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka, about which captain Steve Stricker and his total roster fielded fixed questions.
For veterans of these experiences, this week in Charlotte should really feel just like the dawning of a brand new period during which drawback youngsters have been banished to the sin bin and jerks have been jettisoned. It will deliver no consolation to Luke Donald, who will captain Europe towards these guys a 12 months therefore on the Ryder Cup in Italy.
In the spirt of discovering a cloud to go together with each silver lining: golf followers may not be nicely served by Team USA’s newly-forged collegiality. It removes the participating frisson of latest contests during which the U.S. focus typically gave the impression to be on an enemy inside. Comity doesn’t normally lend itself to driving team competitors, so there will likely be golf trade executives secretly hoping that Europe is one way or the other compelled to subject a Garcia, Westwood or Poulter in Rome to keep up the custom of again room dysfunction as a enjoyable storyline for followers. But whereas golf typically—and team golf specifically—has undeniably benefited from polarizing figures, any definition of acceptable polarizing habits should cease this aspect of normalizing a tyrant whereas mendacity about being a drive for good.
As the U.S. team stands on the cusp of a halcyon period, it’s two rivals—Europe and the Internationals—seem headed for a interval of rebuilding and, within the case of the Presidents Cup itself, an extended overdue reimagining. What received’t change are essentially the most reliable sources of edginess and angst within the respective Cups: hard-fought competitors and the occasional overstepping induced by patriotic fervor. Both are preferable to the scheming by the egocentric that has grow to be the distorted norm.
During the celebrations on Sunday night, members of the U.S. team should chip in for a bottle of Greg Norman’s eponymous wine (at $17, it’s a mere buck-forty every) and toast him for guaranteeing that they’ll be among the many valuable few to emerge profitable and with enhanced reputations from his new world order.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports activities/golf/2022/09/24/american-success-presidents-cup-2022-toast-greg-norman/8107290001/
