| Golf Betting: Ryder Cup |
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Wednesday, 20 September 2006
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 Furyk playing well Europe and the United States are pretty evenly matched on the odds, but Captain Tom Lehman says the Americans are Ryder Cup underdogs. This is a fair statement considering the Americans limp into the event following bad play.The best any of their five players managed at the final PGA Tour event before entering the Ryder Cup was Chris DiMarco in a tie for 39th at the 84 Lumber Classic, 11 shots out of the lead. Only two others even made the cut. Over in England, Tiger Woods and Jim Furyk both were soundly beaten in the first round of the World Match Play Championship. The Europeans enter play having done much better prior to the Ryder Cup. Paul Casey won at Wentworth Sunday in the World Match Play Championship. Padraig Harrington and Jose Maria Olazabal finished in the top 10 at the Madrid Masters, where Darren Clarke also posted two rounds in the 60s at his first tournament since his wife died.
Recent good play and a lot of experience will help lift Europe's play. Henrik Stenson and Robert Karlsson are the only two rookies on Europe's team. Last year their rookies went 6-6-1.
The Americans will counter with with Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Jim Furyk. There's much less experience competing for the red, white and blue which have four rookies on their team, two of whom never have competed in match play.
Currently, the course is soggy and bad weather is expected throughout most of the play. Lehman brought his team to Ireland at the end of August for two days of practice, determined to end nearly two decades of frustration in the Ryder Cup. The dismal weather generated this week should not have been surprising, because it also rained most of those two days.
Having lost four of the last five times, the Americans will try to beat Europe on their turf for the first time since 1993 when the Ryder Cup gets under way on Friday. European captain Ian Woosnam said his players still feel as though they have something to prove, but he sure didn't make them sound like anything but the favorites on home soil.
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| Last Updated ( Wednesday, 20 September 2006 ) | |||||||