American Ryder Cup Standings
Tiger Woods is still sitting at 7th place on the US Ryder Cup team standings after placing 23rd at the 2010 British Open at St Andrews. Woods still has four weeks to up his game, and position in the standings, to ensure he qualifies for one of the seven automatic berths on the squad.
After the PGA championship concludes at Whistling Straits on August 15th, the top seven players in the standings are automatically guaranteed a place on the Ryder cup team. This year’s matches will be held across the pond in Wales at the Celtic Manor Resort. Right now Woods has 48 points on Matt Kuchar who is in eighth place. Jeff Overton is in ninth place and 144 points behind Woods and Ricky Barns, Hunter Mahan, Ben Crane, Stewart Cink and Nick Watney round off the top 14 players.
Phil Mickelson tops the list; no doubt he will be on the team. Steve Stricker won the John Deere Classic for the second consecutive year two weeks ago and is at number two. Following Stricker is Jim Furyk, Anthony Kim, Lucas Glover and Dustin Johnson.
Kim has suffered from a lot of injuries in the past two years and is currently dealing with torn ligaments in his left thumb. The thumb injury has gotten progressively worse since he first began mentioning it in 2009. Rumours have been circulating that he is considering surgery which would mean he will miss time at the peak of the golf season to recover. Kim has been very tight-lipped about the whole thing,
“It’s definitely uncomfortable and something I didn’t want to talk about,” Kim said. “I have a great doctor . . . and he’s trying to figure it out. Maybe we go to Nike and get a new glove that fits my thumb and holds it in place a little bit better. We are just trying to figure something out.”
US team captain Corey Pavin is following in the footsteps of his predecessor Paul Azinger and will be watching three more tournaments before making up his mind about his four wild cards. He will announce them on September 7th, and could be anyone from Bubba Watson, Zach Johnson, Kenny Perry, Stewart Cink, Ben Crane to Hunter Mahan.
Pavin is in London and will be participating in the Senior British Open scheduled for this week at Carnoustie. He watched the last round of the British Open from a TV in his London hotel room and commented via email that,
"I certainly wish Americans had played better in general.”
He wasn’t totally unimpressed though, noting some players he thought stood out:
"But there were good performances by Dustin Johnson, Rickie Fowler, Jeff Overton, Nick Watney, JB Holmes and Sean O'Hair.”
The best American players at the British Open were Sean O’Hair and Nick Watney. Both men shared seventh pace, though their finish at the Open wasn’t enough to force either one into the top seven Ryder Cup places. Watney is closest to getting in, at 14th, and O’Hair is five sports back at 19th.
Pavin is not worried about the Americans' performances at the British Open, and there is still a lot of time left for the top eight places to work themselves out:
“With over 70 days before the first shot is struck at the Ryder Cup, there is still plenty of time for potential team members to show even better form."
Pavin has followed European Ryder Cup captain Colin Montgomerie’s lead and announced his vice-captains for the 2010 Ryder Cup. This year the US team will be co-captained by Tom Lehman, Jeff Sluman, David Love, and Paul Goydos.
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