Opening four-ball pairings a tossup
Longtime Maui resident Mark Rolfing, a TV golf analyst at the Ryder Cup, chronicles his observations of the tournament for The Advertiser.
By Mark Rolfing
Special to The Advertiser
SUTTON COLDFIELD, England — The weather. It's cloudy and a little bit cooler with a 15 mph wind. The course is going to play fairly tough this morning although the rough was cut last night. So it's not as long as it was during the practice rounds.
Associated Press
The headline today was that everybody was upset when Tiger Woods played his practice around 6:30 a.m. yesterday and was done by 9. All the people that bought tickets and came at nine — when the U.S. was scheduled to practice — didn't get to see him.
Tiger Woods of the United States with his girlfriend Elin Nordegren at the opening ceremony for the 34th Ryder Cup.
Today's first four-ball match is Woods and Paul Azinger for the United States against Darren Clarke and Thomas Bjorn for Europe.
This is going to be a terrific match and I would call it a tossup.
The Woods-Azinger pairing is a little surprising because everyone expected Woods to play with Mark Calcavecchia.
In the afternoon you'll probably see Woods and Calcavecchia paired together.
I would say that other then Sergio Garcia, Bjorn is playing the best among the European players.
The second match is David Duval and Davis Love III for the U.S., playing Garcia and Lee Westwood.
This is going to be another good match and another tough one to pick the winner.
There was speculation that no matter how poorly Jesper Parnevik was playing he would be Garica's partner. In fact, Sam Torrance, the European captain, said Parnevik has improved throughout the week. But I don't think we'll see Parnevik until later in the singles. So I think Love and Duval are the favorites.
Match three, is Jim Furyk and Scott Hoch for the U.S. against Bernard Langer and Colin Montgomerie.
Montgomerie has been battling back problems but appears to be OK.
Hoch and Furyk are both very straight hitters which is going to be very important with the narrow fairways. I wouldn't be surprised to see Langer and Montgomerie win this match.
The final match this morning will be Phil Mickelson and David Toms for the U.S. against Padraig Harrington and Niclas Fasth.
Certainly, Mickelson and Toms are favored for this match, but I think it'll be close.
It's going to be important for Mickelson and Toms to be patient because both Europeans are notoriously slow players.
I think the morning matches are really going to set the tone for the rest of the Ryder Cup. Especially, since the four matches could go either way.
And, I think both sides are looking to take an early lead.
Let's say if one side gets a 3-1 lead it would have a huge advantage already, even though only four matches have been played.
