U.S. golf is at a crossroads

Was the Ambush at Oakland Hills merely the welcome end to a forgettable golf season or a watershed moment in U.S. golf?

It was one--and it could be both.

This golf season broke from the gate brilliantly with Phil Mickelson's Masters breakthrough before pulling up lame thanks to Retief Goosen's plod around Shinnecock at the U.S. Open, Todd Hamilton's lottery win at the British and Vijay Singh's survival of Whistling Straits at the PGA Championship.

However, 2004 will be forever significant if this is the year the PGA of America realizes it has been blindsided by the worldwide growth of its sport the same way basketball in the U.S. and hockey in Canada were. The same way, matter of fact, as the LPGA was years ago.

Unimaginable though it might seem, barring the unlikely comeback at Brookline in 1999, the U.S. now would be looking at five straight Ryder Cup failures. Yet the Europeans still bamboozle the U.S. golf community, including the media, playing the traditional "underdog" card.

The future doesn't look much better. This motley U.S. squad had rookies aged 48, 44, 36 and two at 30. The average age of the other seven players was a shade over 36. All but one of the European rookies were in their 20s, and the veterans" average age was 30.

The U.S. team was composed mostly of players completely off form. Only one of the Americans had won a tournament since May, whereas five of the Europeans had won a total of six times.

The U.S. effort was hamstrung by a flawed selection process that de-emphasizes current form and the failure to acknowledge the vastly improving quality of overseas competition.

Combining the Ryder Cup and the Presidents Cup into one biannual competition has been suggested as a way to provide the world of golf with an undisputed titleholder every two years.

But unless things change, and soon, that would not be the United States.

Now we're the underdog--and this season was just a dog.

COPYRIGHT 2004 Sporting News Publishing Co.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning