I was going to start these Tuesday twitterings with the sentence ‘by the time you read this column, Russell Knox could be a Ryder Cup player’ but as one weary sub-editor, who greets the arrival of these weekly wafflings with the same kind of stony-faced, crumbling sombreness of the Great Sphinx of Giza, reminded me, most readers will have actually stopped reading by the time they have absorbed the words ‘Nick Rodger on Tuesday’.
On the other hand, loyal digesters of these haverings clearly have a sturdy perseverance that makes this scribe think of of Mbah Gotho, that hardy veteran of Indonesia who was unveiled over the weekend as the world’s oldest person at the sprightly age of 145.
“The recipe is just patience,” Gotho apparently muttered. We’re still not quite sure if he was talking about the secret to his longevity or his approach to reading the Tuesday column. It can add years to you, after all. So can writing it.
Read more: Russell Knox confident he deserves Ryder Cup place
Over the past couple of weeks, the unrelenting build up to today’s European Ryder Cup wild card announcement has been a bit like a golfing version of the Hokey Cokey. Knox, Martin Kaymer, Lee Westwood, Thomas Pieters, Luke Donald? He’s in, he’s out, he’s in, he’s out.
Amid the various ponderings over Darren Clarke’s decision, the recycling of various ‘will he, won’t he’ stories about the European captain’s choice would get us all honorary membership of Friends of the Earth.
For worried observers with a tartan tinge, Pieters’s rousing burst for the line over the past fortnight has had serious repercussions for Scotsman Knox’s hopes of gaining one of three captain’s picks. The Belgian youngster, who was runner-up in the recent Czech Masters, continued his charge with a terrific win in Denmark on Sunday, where he birdied the final three holes under the pressurised microscope to claim a one shot victory.
Read more: Love III has task in hand as US Ryder Cup team takes shape
Was it enough to sway Clarke’s thinking? Maybe, but at the expense of Knox? Surely not. Both Pieters and Knox have more than shown their worth but Knox’s efforts have been performed on a truly global stage and his wins in the WGC HSBC Champions and PGA Tour’s Travelers Championship were against world class fields. On stats alone – 20th in the world, seventh on the FedEx Cup, one of only five multiple winners on the PGA Tour this year – Knox’s case is compelling. The fact he plays week in, week out on the PGA circuit, a highly beneficial attribute for an away Ryder Cup, simply bolsters his resume. The 31-year-old is also hugely popular in the US itself. They’d have him for themselves if they could.
There are buts, of course. Knox is not what you’d call a ‘European Tour’ man and the fact he didn’t play in the recent Wyndham Championship, when Clarke contacted him to suggest he should in an effort to lock up a place, may have gone against him. Background is supposedly a key commodity in the Ryder Cup and Clarke knows those he can trust in that particular arena. That’s why Westwood and Kaymer are both expected to get the nod to add experience to a team packed full of rookies. In an eye-brow raising development yesterday, betting was also suspended on Donald getting a call up despite another fairly modest season.
Clarke and Westwood, a veteran of nine transatlantic tussles, are as thick as the thickest of thieves. Apart from a second place in the Masters, Westwood's form has been dogged rather than dazzling. Kaymer has had six top-10s in his last 12 events while Donald's second place in The Wyndham recently was something of a bolt from the blue.
On current form alone, it would cause a major stooshie if Donald were to be plucked from the pack. As for Westwood? Well, given his relationship with Clarke, and the fact he didn’t play at all at the weekend when everyone else was making a final bid to impress, suggests he’s already been given the tap. Yes, he and Donald have a fine pedigree but loyalty, nostalgia and sentiment have to an end sometime in an era when the word ‘rookie’ is almost defunct and we are slowly seeing a changing of the Ryder Cup guard. Knox and Pieters are part of that future but with so many new faces heading to Hazeltine, it seems the old boys’ network is still entrenched. If Knox or Pieters, or indeed both, miss out, they can feel justifiably aggrieved.
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