Have you decided who your wild card picks will be for the European Ryder Cup team yet? No? Well, get cracking because every single person with access to the internet is working themselves into a furious fankle over Thomas Bjorn’s imminent decision and if you don’t contribute to the hectic conversation with vigorous immediacy then you’ll probably get a heavy-handed visit from baton-wielding Wild Card Debate Enforcement Officers.
Listen. There’s an ominous knock on your front door right now. Quick, hide behind the couch.
Whatever happens tomorrow at the made-for-television unveiling, which is a bit like a golfing version of Stars In Their Eyes but without the billowing dry ice and wonky renditions of Only the Lonely, Bjorn will probably find himself in one of those damned if you do, damned if you don’t scenarios.
“Well, if you ask me I certainly wouldn’t have picked him”, “you’re right, he’s taking a big risk including him”, “but I think he’s made a sensible decision picking him”, “don’t be silly, he should gave picked him instead”, “oh sod off, what do you know anyway …” That’s how online debates tend to evolve as they peter out into petty, pointless point scoring.
In the aftermath of the final counting event for European qualification in Denmark on Sunday, Bjorn stated that he is “pretty much there in my head” about his team although there remains “one little doubt”.
Matt Wallace’s terrific win at the weekend was the kind of rousing, noble charge which probably featured a lance among his long irons and no doubt added to that “doubt” that Bjorn referred to. Whether it was too little too late for Wallace remains to be seen but there’s nothing better than an outsider making a bold surge to the line.
In these frantic times of hysterical reaction it’s perhaps over the top to suggest, like some have, that Wallace’s inclusion is now a “no-brainer” but the manner of his victory – the Englishman birdied five of his last six holes and then two in the play-off -– and his general play this year has certainly led to a new hat landing in the ring.
By all accounts, Ian Poulter is so locked in to the team, they’ve tossed away the key while there is a school of thought – and it depends what school of thought you side with – that has Paul Casey also in with Sergio Garcia and Henrik Stenson odds on favourites.
Rafa Cabrera Bello, Thomas Pieters and Matt Fitzpatrick are in the giddy mix as well. Oor ain Russell Knox’s summer surge, where he was runner-up at the Ryder Cup venue in the French Open and then won the Irish Open, has been tempered in the weeks that followed and he has drifted out of the running.
But then who are we to say what Bjorn is thinking even if we spend half the time pretending to think we know what Bjorn is thinking?
In a Ryder Cup set-up which can become something of a closed shop for those outside the world’s top-50, Wallace’s hearty campaign strikes a blow for the brethren of true European Tour players.
Three wins in 2018 is a fine return for a man who may not have global prominence but is a proven winner and is certainly no shrinking violet. It’s been the kind of rapid rise that would just about give you the bends.
Six wins on the third-tier Alps Tour in 2016 showed he had plenty about him and he has continued to demonstrate that winning mentality on both the Challenge Tour and European Tour to bolster his credentials and underline his competitive prowess.
There are already five rookies in Team Europe but they are hardly raw, wet-behind-the-ear recruits. Wallace may not have the big stage experience of the others but his undeniable grit, confidence and form could see him thrive. There has to be a changing of the guard at some point.
When Bjorn missed out on a captain’s call-up himself in 2006, his response to the decision by European skipper, Ian Woosnam, was as withering as machine gun fire. “He has been the most pathetic captain I’ve ever seen,” he hissed during an unrestrained tirade.
The boot is now on the other foot as Bjorn mulls over the multitude of names birling about in his head. You’ll never please everybody in this game. And that’s about the only thing certain with wild card picks ...
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