Oops. Sorry fellas, got confused on the dates. Thought picks weren't due until the 12th. In that case, without any further adieu, I'd like to announce my Captain's selections for the Ryder Cup Americans.
This was actually both an easy and incredibly hard decision to make at the same time. The first pick was the easy part. Since I'm allowed to use whatever criteria I wished, I decided to take a look back through the standings. For all the players who were late in the sign ups, I went back and filled in their scores for events they weren't signed up for yet. When I re-tabulated all the points, there was actually a player who would've made the automatic 9 had he been involved from the beginning. Looking at that and a combination of recent play along with recent tournament performance, as well as an outstanding performance in the North American Challenge, TaterNater
easily stood out from the crowd and is well deserving of the first spot on the team. Congrats to the Tater
!
Once Tater was selected, the hard part set in and this is the part I've been sweating over for about the last 2 weeks. After reviewing my reduxed standings, the qualifying standings, player history, recent single play tournament performance as well as a host of other criterion. I was left with three players who were for the most part, all equally deserving of the 12th and final spot. Unfortunately that spot can only go to one player so... <drumroll>
The 12th and final member of the 2009 USA Ryder Cup team will be claremoreblue
! The duck has been a very good and consistent player for a long time. He really understands the match play risk-reward format and can perform when the pressure is on. He's also an outstanding member of the community, but when it really came down to it, his tournament experience is where he gained the slight edge over the other two players being considered. The duck is the final link to the USA bringing home Samuel Ryder's cup.
Please join me in congratulating your 2009 USA Ryder Cup Team
:
nivlac
, gitthe
, SmoothSwinger
, Hightower3
, jeffdos924
, Jarid
, JALAII
, thunderbird
, SteveOhh
, WVMountaineer
, TaterNater
& claremoreblue
I'll be private messaging the entire team soon (prob tomorrow) with some updates. Congrats again to those that made the team and best of luck next year to those who didn't.