USA Ryder Cup Hopes Will Rest with Cink, Toms and Henry

US Ryder Cup Captain Tom Lehman is hoping to find one more super-pairing like he believes he has in Tiger Woods & Jim Furyk and Phil Mickelson & Chris DiMarco. In the 2005 Presidents Cup competition those two pairings were exceptional. While you have to believe that those two pairings will go out for all four matches during the first two days of 2-man team play, Lehman would love to have another pair that he could count on for at least 3 of the four sessions.

As things stand right now, nobody in the European side is playing any better than Stewart Cink, David Toms or JJ Henry, except perhaps Luke Donald. And Lehman’s third real strong pairing will probably come from these three. Cink is on a pretty good roll, having finished in the top 10 in 4 of his last 8 tournaments. Toms is a little more of a mystery, only because he returned from a mid-season injury to play in 3 consecutive tournaments. A 19th place finish in the International was followed by a 16th place finish in the PGA Championship and an 8th place finish at the WGC event at Firestone. That is some return! The question is if Toms is healthy enough to play more than 18 holes per day. Henry has been playing very well since making the team (top 10s in his last 2 events) and will likely go out at least twice in the twosomes regardless of whether he’s playing with Cink or Toms.

If Toms can play more than 18 holes a day, Lehman will ask him to do it, but on only one of the first 2 days to help keep him fresh for singles. With those three twosomes playing 12 of the first 16 matches, Lehman can mix and match his remaining veterans Scott Verplank & Chad Campbell with inexperienced teammates Zach Johnson, Henry, Brett Wetterich and Vaughn Taylor to get them some match experience before Sunday singles. Any halves or points they might get out of those four remaining twosome matches would be a nice bonus.

I believe this formula is what would give the US a fighting chance to win in Ireland.