Zinger Changing Ryder Cup: 'I'm Not Here to Babysit'
DUBLIN, Ohio - Paul Azinger is going down in history as the guy who changed the Ryder Cup. It's the biggest change since the Great Britain-Ireland punching bag was expanded to include all European golfers in 1979. And, as will be recalled, there went the neighborhood. Give the Euros a couple years to get their feet under them, and the next thing you know, the big bad bullies from the U.S.A. have hardly been able to find a win to call their own. Much, it should be noted, to their chagrin and embarrassment. To this end, Zinger has made two major steps.One has to do with points and numbers stuff. Everyone who can add will be able to follow that one. The other no one will see. It has to do with attitude. Maybe it fringes on heresy for people who hold the Ryder Cup holy and the symbol of American heritage, which is isn't and never was. (It's an international competition and the cup was put up as the trophy by a guy named Ryder, who happened to be British.) This change has to do with how a captain handles his team.
“This isn't going to be a lovefest,” Zinger said Wednesday, on the eve of the first round of Jack Nicklaus' Memorial Tournament.
Someone's going to make an awful lot out of that crack. Like, it's a war cry or something. Something like the “War by the Shore,” or some other nonsense. It's not as though Zinger is issuing a challenge to the Euros for the next meeting at Valhalla in Louisville in September.
It's a romantic idea. But sorry. It's nothing of the sort. Zinger wasn't talking about how he was going to rally his troops and charge up Bunker Hill.
Understand - Zinger is not a hardcase. He's not some George Patton-type. He's as tough a competitor as any who's come down the fairway. He took on Seve Ballesteros and flicked off his guff. And he can smile and talk to you while chomping on a lollipop.
So Zinger merely saying that wasn't going to be patting his guys on the head and saying, “There, there.” He's not going to be wiping their noses and comforting them. He was just going to make up his lineup and say, “Go play.” Which is far different from other U.S. captains. Hal Sutton, for one, tried the team thing. He said they were tougher than new rope. They got killed.
Commentators, observers and the like had offered in the past that the Europeans have been thumping the Americans because they were a real team. They had togetherness. They ate and drank together, traveled together, etc. So the Americans, observers said, had to bond.
Bond, they said. Like what? Like crusaders against the evils of littering? Like some Cub Scout pack facing their first overnight?
The American golfers who have had their heads handed to them over the years never talked about having to bond. They did a little quiet swearing maybe, but what they did was get beat, that's all.
But to some, bonding and all such notions seem to be what the Americans need so badly. It must be part of the aw-gee, touchie-feelie attitude.
“I'm more of a figure-head,” said Zinger. “The pressure is on the players. It's not on the captain. I mean, what am I going to do? I'm going to get 12 guys that are going to make this team - eight guys who are going to make it [on performance points], four guys I'm going to pick.
“I'm going to find out who wants to play with who, and then hope to do their best.”
How simple is that?
Somebody wondered whether Zinger has had player meetings, maybe cookouts and get-to-know-you things with the players?
“No,” he said.
“Nothing?”
“Nothing.”
That's revolutionary.
“I don't think that's important,” Zinger said. “I don't feel like it needs to be a love fest. The American players get along great. They just do. And I'm not going to target we're going to have fun this week.”
Having fun:
“We have lost five of the last six matches, and the one match in '99 that the American team did win, they came from behind so that they were getting killed all week,” he said. “So for 12 years it looks like the Americans aren't having any fun, and Europe is. Well, you know what - if you're getting killed, you're not having any fun.
“So the perception is that Europe has more fun than we do. I mean, they probably are having more fun. They're winning.”
The one thing Zinger can do to have some fun, he's already done. He convinced the PGA of America, sponsor of the Ryder Cup, to change its points system in two critical ways. One was to award points to the top 10 American finishers in each tournament, regardless of where they finished. Previously, points went only the Americans finishing in the top 10. That was fine back when most of the top 10 were Americans. But more recently, if no Americans were in the top 10, they didn't get points.
The other way was to back-load the system - grant more points in the second year of the two-year cycle. Thus the hotter players would be getting more points.
Zinger also convince the PGA to raise the captain's discretionary picks from two to four.
Now a guy can really have some fun.
“I'm going to drink Courvoisier and smoke cigars and sit on the beach,” he said. “One way or the other.”
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