Snedeker's 64 Is His Best Ryder Cup Practice Round Yet!

I tried to watch some of the Tour Championship today but with playoff chases in baseball, some decent college football games and those Web.com Tour-sized galleries splattered amidst that distance-diffusing East Lake setup (a 16-yard wide landing area?), the ResetCup was relegated to a distant third on my priority viewing list.

Even then, I tended to land on a commercial break whenever I flipped over.

The Ryder Cup can't come soon enough.

Because as Mark Lamport-Stokes reports, Captain Davis Love's selection Brandt Snedeker is playing super heading into the Ryder Cup and even has a chance to win $10 million Sunday.

Snedeker described his third-round 64 in breezy conditions on a fast-running layout as one of his best displays this year and he has targeted something similar for Sunday.

"I actually won't look at the leaderboard all day," he said with a smile.

Don't worry Brandt, all you'd miss are a lot of ads and recognitions of the host pro, The First Tee and high fructose-laden corn syrup soda pop.

"My goal tomorrow is to shoot as low as I possibly can. If that's 63, it's 63. If it's 72, it's 72.

"Whatever it is, it's going to be everything I've got on that golf course tomorrow. The biggest thing tomorrow is going to be how patient you can stay because this golf course eats guys up that don't stay patient."

Or find those under-20 yard wide strips called fairways!

The PGA Tour's highlights:

For fans of Gary Van Sickle's proposed aggregate stroke play for the playoffs, I've updated the scores of the only remaining contenders based on Jim McCabe's item from after the BMW Championship. So here are the scores heading in, with this week's scores in parentheses and the overall total. As it should be, Rory McIlroy has opened a commanding lead. It wouldn't make for exciting viewing but it would also be a win free of resets and based on a playoff consistency.

Rory McIlroy, 41 under (-5) -46    

Tiger Woods, 34 under (-4) -38

Dustin Johnson, 36 under (-1) -37 
  
Louis Oosthuizen, 34 under (E) -34 

Brandt Snedeker, 25 under (-8) -33

Ryan Moore, 24 under (-6) -30

Phil Mickelson, 31 under (+2) -29

Oh and Luke Donald hit a super second shot at 14 Saturday, thankfully posted on YouTube so we can see it:

UK Press Concerned Over Rory-Tiger Goodwill Potentially Squelching Ryder Cup Antics

Credit Matthew Norman for saying what needed to be said: this Tiger-Rory bromance must not strip the Ryder Cup of petty, childish, ego-fueled drama.

Did infantrymen on both sides endure the horrors of the War on the Shore in 1991, and the rancour occasioned by the Battle of Brookline eight years later, when the Americans invaded of the green while current European captain José María Olazábal stood over a crucial putt, so that their successors would compete in love and peace?

Golf, as all fans of PG Wodehouse’s Oldest Member stories appreciate, is not the prissy, gentlemanly pursuit of Peter Alliss’s rose-tinted babblings.

It is a vicious, murderous battle of wills, and more than ever in this biennial challenge to intercontinental machismo, there must be a healthy dollop of spite bubbling beneath the mannerly surface.

DVR Alert: The Kiawah Island Ryder Cup The Euros Are Still Cranky About

I look forward on re-reading Guy Yocom and John Huggan's outstanding oral history of the 1991 Ryder Cup after Golf Channel's Tuesday, September 18th's 8:30 ET "Classic Ryder Cup Golf" re-airing of the final day.

Something tells me Steve Pate still won't play singles, Calc still shanks it on 17 and Langer still misses that pressure-packed putt.  But I will still watch.

Will Ferrell Talks Winona Ryder Cup; Eastwood As Motivational Speaker And What He'd Do As Captain

Fun video from golf.com. Captain Davis Love even found it funny.

At This Rate, Davis Love May Need A Bigger Bulletin Board For The Ryder Cup Team Room

Last bit of fun from the Golf Channel/NBC conference call to hype the Ryder Cup, were these comments related to captains and their decisions.

First, before the fun related to the U.S. team, David Feherty about the importance of the Ryder Cup to Euros and reminding us who Captain Faldo did not pick in 2008 and perhaps, why Captain Faldo did not make the pick.

DAVID FEHERTY:  They tend to put a lot more weight on a player's Ryder Cup for the record.  For instance, Colin Montgomerie is the greatest Ryder Cup player of all time.  Something really put the tilt in his kilt; you know, every time he put his Ryder Cup spikes on, he turned into just virtually an unbeatable player.  If Nick Faldo had picked him, you know, for his team, he probably would have gone past Nick Faldo's record of the most points ever won in Ryder Cup.

And Brandel Chamblee, talking about American captains and their lack of consistency which does make sense.

BRANDEL CHAMBLEE:  I think that in general, the captains for the U.S. side make mistakes.  They consistently switch up the pairings and the players.

For example, Tiger Woods played with three different partners in 2002.  I believe Jim Furyk played with three different partners in 2002, as well, and consistently the U.S. Team does that.  Whereas The Ryder Cup captains tend to find teams, and whether they have success early or they have failures early, they pretty much stick with those teams throughout The Ryder Cup, and it's worked for them.

And us switching, hasn't worked for us.  Paul Azinger I think gave the captaincy its proper due by studying the techniques of The Ryder Cup captains from Europe and employing those.  He played Mickelson with only two partners, Kim, until Mahan on Saturday.  He played Furyk with Perry.  He played Mahan with Leonard.  And I think that ‑‑ well, it obviously worked for him.
   
I think that that's the larger part of the problem, and it's not just a four‑ball that we are getting trapped in.  We also get trapped in the foursomes.  But we get trapped worse in the four‑ball.  I thought it was interesting that Paul Azinger made the decision to not open up with four‑balls for the first time since, I believe, going back to the 80s on U.S. soil.
   
So Davis Love has followed suit.  He's opening up with foursomes.  I think the U.S. side is getting let down by Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, certainly Jim Furyk.  Tiger Woods, I think it's for a different reason.  I think he just intimidates everybody that he plays with.
   
And I think he'll be different this time and I think Phil Mickelson will be different this time.  But I still wouldn't pair Phil Mickelson in the foursomes; I certainly would not pair him in the foursomes the first day because it hurts the morale.  And I would be very careful about pairing Jim Furyk and who I paired him with.

I think an assistant captain better plan on heading to Staples to pick up some pins and cork boards. We're still two weeks away and already we've got a nice stockpile of potential motivation material for the apparently hapless American squad.

Feherty On Medinah: Not Great, But Not Belfry Bad

And the hits keep coming from Wednesday's Golf Channel/NBC conference call, David Feherty:

DAVID FEHERTY:  You know, we have covered PGA Championships there, and Medinah is a long slog of a golf course, between some enormous trees, and has a couple of very similar par 3s over the water.  It's going to favor, I would say, you know, the longer hitters, that's for sure.  And you know, it's got a great finish.  We remember Sergio, I think in '99, 16, chopping it out from behind the trees on the right.  Then a couple of springbok leaps up there and then the par 3, the stare back at Tiger; a great finishing hole.

You know, it's a good golf course.  I don't think personally, you know, that it's great, but if you look at the venues that the Ryder Cup has had, at The Belfry, for instance, which was a horrible golf course to start off with, improved very slightly; it was never a great golf course, but it was a tremendous venue.  I think the crowds in Chicago will turn that golf course into something special.

Brandel: Since The Miceli Run-In, Tiger Has Become More Amiable, Even Pairable

From yesterday's Golf Channel/Ryder Cup conference call, Brandel Chamblee talking about the kinder, gentler Tiger Woods we've seen in the second half of 2012 and how Tiger might even make a semi-decent Ryder Cup partner for someone.

Brandel on Tiger for the team room bulletin board:

And also from the perspective that I think he's become more amiable.  I think he has a different perspective now.  He's looking around, to Johnny's point and saying, what is my legacy going to be, and am I going to have relationships with these people later in life.

It's been interesting.  It's been fun to watch Tiger Woods in his post‑round remarks, maybe since the Honda when he had that little tiff with Alex Miceli.  But since then, he's been a different guy, and I think the players recognize that.

I think that's going to help him in his Ryder Cup experience, because he's going to be more of the leader that Seve was that took lesser players like Manuel Piñero and made them getter; Gilford, made him better; José, made him better.

Tiger's never done that before in a Ryder Cup.  You've [got] to make rookies better in a Ryder Cup situation.

DVR Alert: The Ryder Cup The Euros Are Still Really, Really Bitter About!

Golf Channel, Tuesday night. The shirts, the celebration that still irks them and the "I've got a feeling" Ryder Cup.

1999 Ryder Cup – Final Day
Airtime: Tuesday, 8:30-11:30 p.m. ET

Golf Channel looks back at the thrilling final day of the 1999 Ryder Cup from Brookline, Mass., when Team U.S.A. embarked on the largest come-from-behind victory in Ryder Cup history to retain the Ryder Cup.