Ryder Cup Musings

So, the PGA is over, so the Ryder Cup automatic qualifiers have been determined:

United States:
Phil Mickelson
Hunter Mahan
Bubba Watson
Jim Furyk
Steve Stricker
Dustin Johnson
Jeff Overton
Matt Kuchar

It's a little trickier for Europe, since they haven't updated the standings yet. But I suspect the following are automatic qualifiers:

Lee Westwood, ENG
Rory McIlroy, NIR
Graeme McDowell, NIR
Martin Kaymer, DEU
Ian Poulter, ENG
Ross Fisher, ENG
Francesco Molinari, ITA
Miguel Angel Jimenez, ESP
Paul Casey, ENG

So now, assuming I've got the European automatic qualifiers right, who else to pick? The US gets four picks, and Europe three.
For the United States, my first selection is Tiger Woods. He played a lot better this week, it looks like he's got good things he's working on. He went perfect last year in the President's Cup. Pick him, play him every day, pair him with Steve Stricker every day. I wouldn't pick Anthony Kim or Lucas Glover, the two who got kicked out of the automatic qualifiers this week; Kim's been injured and Glover's done nothing since vanquishing all our hopes at Bethpage last year. I might consider picking Sean O'Hair, who's been playing pretty well and who is, I believe, a good friend of Hunter Mahan. I might also consider considering Ricky Barnes, who's played quite well this year, I believe, or Nick Watney, who played great this week until the 81 today. And maybe also Rickie Fowler; this team is young, but it's not really young. Most of the young players for the US are mid-twenties guys who've been around for a while, while Europe has Rory McIlroy. I think the kind of flair that a guy like Fowler brings can be very useful for this kind of team.

As for Europe and its three picks. There's talk of picking Bernhard Langer, which now that I think about it might actually be an interesting idea. He's driving it 282.4 yards this year on the Senior Tour, he's clearly in rare form right now, and he did just win two majors in match-play-esque fashion. So I don't have a problem with that. If Francesco Molinari's on the team, I think you might want to pick his brother Edouardo, just for the chemistry (and Edouardo's very near to qualifying on the standings anyway). And for the third pick, probably Justin Rose, who's won twice recently, or maybe Alvaro Quiros to provide some raw power to compete with Bubba and Dustin Johnson.