“(The Ryder Cup) is the most important event of the year to him."

That's Anthony Kim who Rex Hoggard is writing about, according to his swing coach Adam Schreiber. When was the last time you heard of an American circling the Ryder Cup on his schedule? Especially as he faces hand surgery.

The math is simple, at least to a 24-year-old with a bag full of Advil. He wants to play all four majors, secure his spot on captain Corey Pavin’s team and, when the pain becomes too unbearable, have surgery on his thumb, a procedure that will take between two and three months to recover from.

They may not have believed in excuses in the Kim childhood home, and they must not have been big on calendars, either. Not when the last putt at “Glory’s Last Shot” drops 45 days before the United States and Europe resume the Transatlantic grudge match.

Even if he skips the PGA Championship and has the surgery following July’s British Open that would leave little time to rehab his thumb and his game for what is clearly the Super Bowl of Kim’s year.

“(The Ryder Cup) is the most important event of the year to him,” Schreiber said. “So for him to find this out in a Ryder Cup year, it’s pretty challenging.”

For an entertaining look at this week's SI Golf Plus cover shoot of Kim, check out snapper Darren Carroll's blog post and gallery (embedded below) recounting how he got his shots. It's becoming clear that AK has watched one-too-many episodes of Entourage.

Monty Identifies Vice Captains; World Can Now Go Back To Less Important Matters

And he's only going with three (Bjorn, McGinley and Olazabal), compared to Captain Pavin's four. For now."

Europe captain Colin Montgomerie identified Thomas Bjorn, Paul McGinley and Jose Maria Olazabal as his ideal choices to be vice captains for the Ryder Cup.

That’s assuming none of them qualify to play.

Montgomerie said Wednesday that he wants Bjorn and McGinley, who have competed in a combined five Ryder Cups, to focus on perhaps making the team over the next couple of months.

“The Americans are having four vice captains. I shall have three, maybe four,” Montgomerie said at the Real Club de Golf in Seville on the eve of the Spanish Open. “But I will not be naming them until after The Open at St. Andrews in July because, with Bjorn and McGinley, I want them to have every chance to make the team as players again.

"Letting in a few breathless, bleach-blond TV reporters to report the sideshow might not be such a bad thing, given golf's apparently graying viewer demographics."

Regarding this week at Quail Hollow, Steve Elling notes this in his Up & Down column the decision to keep certain media outlets away from the press tent.

When saucy celebrity TV shows such as Inside Edition and Extra applied for credentials after Woods committed last week, they were told they had missed the application deadline. Yet when traditional print outlets and sports magazines asked for more credentials, they were green-lighted for admittance. We're all for maintaining some semblance of dignity and decorum here, but is there any more damage that the tabloids and celeb shows can do? The Woods scandal seems to have mostly played out -- a few loose ends about how he will be received by his peers and the public notwithstanding -- and golf probably can use the exposure. At this stage, the sport has already been tainted. Letting in a few breathless, bleach-blond TV reporters to report the sideshow might not be such a bad thing, given golf's apparently graying viewer demographics. I guess sex sells -- everywhere but in golf.