2010 Ryder Cup - The Year of the Squeegee

So the 2010 Ryder Cup got officially underway at 2:30 am EST this morning. As I am usually up and working during the overnight hours on Thursday nights, I've been looking forward to the start of this. Unfortunately, I've been able to enjoy only about 2 hours of it so far. :(

Apparently it's monsoon season in the UK. First they started play in lovely heavy rain, some decent winds, and a nice, mild 50 degrees temperature. They played some more, the rain came down more, the ground crews got lots of exercise squeegeeing the greens, there was more rain, and play was ultimately suspended around 4:45 am EST.

Now, as of around an hour ago, they were saying it would be 7 am EST at the absolute earliest before they could hope to resume play, all but likely later than that. Gotta love that great United Kingdom weather.

Now the real question is, did JB create a machine that can control the weather, simply so he could f*ck with the weather for the Ryder Cup since he hasn't been able to do so in the TGA for a couple weeks? :D


Edit - Sounds 8:30 to 9 am EST is going to be the new possible earliest time of resuming play. And it is beginning to look more and more like play going an extra day into Monday could be a possibility.

It may be only a video game, but practice is practice. :D

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6.../170698296.jpg

Team Europe getting in a little playtime on Tiger Woods 11 while still waiting through the ever ongoing rain delay.

If the rain never stops, maybe they can use TW11 to decide the Ryder Cup. ;)

Damn, this Ryder Cup is really getting good. Thank god for working in radio and being able to sit there watching Ryder Cup play all morning on the computer there in the studio while doing my morning show at the same time.

US had a 2.5-1.5 lead after Session 1, which was completed around 5:30 EST or so this morning.

US currently with a 6-4 lead after Session 2, which was completed maybe 30 minutes or so ago.

And due to that rain yesterday, everything has been changed. Instead of 5 sessions, they are only playing 4 now. The first session of foursomes was changed from 4 pairs, to 6 pairs with all 12 players on each side playing. And right now, in session 3, they are playing 4 pairs of fourball and two pairs of foursomes at the same time, with hopes of finishing up whatever they don't get done before dark sets in, sometime tomorrow morning before moving onto singles shortly after.

So US off to a good start. US needs only 14 points (out of the 28 available) to retain the Cup since they won in 2008. Europe needs 14.5 points to win the Cup. So with only 18 points left to be claimed in this Ryder Cup, Europe needs to reel off 10.5 points during the rest of today and tomorrow. US only needs 8 points to claim the Cup for another two years.

I am very impressed by the rookie group of Bubba Watson and Jeff Overton. The Ryder Cup rookies paired up against Luke Donald and Padraig Harrington in the Session 1 Fourballs, and Watson/Overton ends up winning the match 3 & 2. Granted they ended up losing 2 & 1 to Ian Poulter and Luke Donald in the Session 2 Foursomes, but definitely proving themselves worthy out of the course so far. Stewart Cink and Matt Kuchar have been fun to watch in their Session 1 and 2 matches, both times playing against Rory McIlroy and Greg McDowell. Cink has made some incredible putts and has been racking up birdies. Looking forward to the rest of their matches.

Also a great Cup so far from Tiger and Steve Stricker. Say what you want about Tiger, he has been starting to show some signs of his old self during sessions 1 and 2, with Woods/Stricker winning session 1 against Ian Poulter and Ross Fisher 2 Up, and then winning 4 & 3 in session 2 against Miguel Angel Jimenez and Peter Hanson. On the other hand, the Mickelson/Dustin Johnson pair has been disappointing, losing in session 1 3 & 2 to Lee Westwood and Martin Kaymer, and then losing session 2 3 & 2 to Harrington and Fisher. It'll be interesting to see if there is any change from those two after Corey Pavin paired Dustin up with Jim Furyk and Mickelson with Rickie Fowler for session 3.

Also, watching all this golf non stop over the last 35 hours has me badly craving to play more of the Ryder Cup of Tiger Woods 11.

Time to break out the squeegees again. It's been raining heavily for a while now and supposed to keep raining for another hour or two. So instead of starting at 3:45am EST to finish up yesterday's afternoon session, they won't be starting until 7am EST at the earliest.

This also creates a Ryder Cup first. No matter what they do now, they will be playing on a Monday for the first time ever. They hope to get the current session completed today, leaving just the 12 singles matches tomorrow. As well, based on the Captain's Agreement, the Ryder Cup WILL end on Monday by 6:43pm British Standard Time (which is the official sunset time) no matter what, even if there are still matches being played on the course. Any incomplete matches at 6:43pm BST tomorrow will automatically become halves, and the score will officially be whatever it ends up as.

Well, one session left to go. Singles time starting right now in the Ryder Cup. Europe leads the USA 9 1/2 to 6 1/2.

HORRIBLE day yesterday for the US. The US got bitch slapped by the tune of 5 1/2 to 1/2 in the 6 matches that were being played. US needs to pull 7 1/2 points out of their ass today to retain the Ryder Cup. Europe only needs 5 points to win it.

Well, US made one hell of a comeback. At one point this morning, Europe was leading in 8 of the 12 matches on the course, but the US turned it around. Great games today from Tiger, Stricker, Mickelson, Zach Johnson, Dustin Johnson, and Jeff Overton. Rickie Fowler made a hell of a putt on 18 to complete a comeback from 4 down at one point to halve the hole and give the US a 13 1/2 tie with Europe and a chance. Unfortunately, bad days by Bubba Watson and Matt Kuchar, followed by a bit of a choke from Hunter Mahan on his second shot on the 17th, and then a missed putt on his third shot to ultimately lose as he was already 2 down going into the 17th.

In the end, Europe takes claims the Ryder Cup, 14 1/2 to 13 1/2. Great win by Europe. Hell of a comeback by the US. All in all, a great Ryder Cup in the end, even though at the end of the day yesterday, and for about the first 3 or 4 hours today, it looked like it was going to be extremely ugly score-wise.

Yeah we were damn close....good showing. I wish I could have watched it, didn't get to see a single minute, mainly cuz I was watching football.