Filed under: Ryder Cup
NEWPORT, Wales -- Playing in the Ryder Cup is a pain.
But in an interesting way.
"You have 11 teammates that you don't want to let down," American captain Corey Pavin says. "You're representing all your peers on Tour and of course you are representing the United States of America. You're playing in front of a lot of people that are emotionally charged."
To put it another way: the Ryder Cup is everything golf takes great pride in never being.
The competition between the U.S. and Europe that begins Friday at Celtic Manor is team play, a drastic shift from the every-man-for-himself mentality that rules professional golf. It's us vs. them, an over-excessive exhibition of nationalism by a game that boasts of being boundary-less. There is gamesmanship; there are mind games. Whether the sport's keepers like to admit it or not, opponent's mistakes are often cheered as loudly as the home team's successes.
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