2006 Ryder Cup Saturday Four Ball pairings

1. Cink-Henry vs. Casey-Karlson

[Author’s note – it took Tom Lehman 52 minutes to come up with that??? He flirted with missing the deadline for submitting the picks by only a couple of minutes…what’s the penalty I wonder? One hole in the first match???]

2. Mickelson-DiMarco vs. Garcia-Olazabal

3. Woods-Furyk vs. Clarke-Westwood

4. Verplank-Johnson vs. Harrington-Stenson

Any idea when we might see Vaughn Taylor? Are we finished with Brett Wettrich? Notice how today, the stud pairings (Woods-Furyk, Mickelson-DiMarco) were matches 1-4, but now they are 2-3 for Saturday? Well Woosnam did the same thing, but also managed to out-flank Lehman in the 1-4 matches. He had a great hunch he played there, effectively guessing where Lehman would play his depth and counterpunched well.

Finally, Golfweek’s Jeff Rude had this to note about the choice of The K Club:

“Let’s just suppose that someone blindfolded me, dropped me onto the K Club, yanked off the eye cover, sent me on an 18-hole walk and asked, “Where are you?” The answer, without question: La Costa. However, when you stand on No. 18, you feel you just got airlifted onto the last at Doral Blue.”

Exactly. I wonder what he’d say about TPC Utica…err…Turning Stone Casino? Hey Jeff! Where’d you get airlifted? Saskatoon?

Just a note – it took the first group of the day – Woods, Furyk, Montgomerie and Harrington 5:20 (FIVE-TWENTY!) to play 18 holes…with nobody in front of them…on a parkland course.

The Euros APPEAR…ON PAPER…to have a huge advantage in matches 1 and 4. If they don’t cash in those two “penalty kicks” of the draw, the U.S. should breathe a big sigh of relief. Down 5-3 already and maybe looking at 10-6 by Saturday’s end if they play carelessly.