Presidents Cup brings special challenges

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Editor's note: This article is reprinted courtesy of Boston Hannah, which produces The Presidents Cup program.

During a week unlike any they encounter the rest of the year, participants in golf's two biggest team competitions -- The Presidents Cup and the Ryder Cup -- are faced with an obstacle course of special challenges, some big, others small. The format is different, there are captains and teammates to impress, nightly dinners to attend, pairings to plan. Not to mention all the uniforms.

The biggest mistake, players say, is for any of their teammates to change. Adjustments are important, sure, but the pressure and enormity of the event doesn't mean that the basic premise is any different. It's still just golf, despite all the pomp and circumstance that accompanies it.

"When you start making big adjustments, that's when you run into problems," says Ben Curtis, who made his Ryder Cup debut in 2008. "You've got to play your game, be your own self, and keep doing what you've been doing, because obviously it's been good enough to get you there."

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Greg Norman and Fred Couples will have plenty of tough choices to make at Harding Park.

Related links

More on The Presidents Cup
Blog: Captain Couples
Wild day in Washington
Meet the U.S. squad
Meet the Internationals

PAIRINGS
There is a method to the madness, however. Pairings are done with strengths, weaknesses, and personalities in mind. Big bombers with skilled escape artists? Accurate drivers with great putters? Two aggressive players? Some pairings, such as Seve Ballesteros/José-Maria Olazabal, are no-brainers; others, such as Tiger Woods/Phil Mickelson, didn't work out. With four of the five sessions involving partners, it's important  and difficult  to find just the right mix.

FOURSOMES
Golf balls can be an issue when figuring out Foursomes (alternate shot) pairings, as well. Some captains take golf ball brand and make-ups into account when determining their pairings, some do not. Certain players aren't comfortable playing a different type of ball than they are used to  Lee Janzen said it could mean a half-a-club difference, and points out that playing a different type of ball can have an even more pronounced effect with shots and around the green  and prefer being paired with someone who plays the same type.

British Open champion Stewart Cink, who has played in three Presidents Cups and four Ryder Cups, doesn't care which ball he plays.

"I'm normally the one that will go to the other player's ball if they're a little fidgety about it, because I'm totally not," Cink said. "I love my Nike golf ball, but if the situation arises where I need to play another ball, I've done it before, I feel comfortable doing it."

The format can take some getting used to, especially Foursomes, an alternate shot competition rarely played in the United States, but extremely popular elsewhere. But even that isn't hard to overcome, says Sergio Garcia: "It's not that different, especially if you've grown up playing team sports.

"You're a team. You compete together."

A LITTLE ADDED PRESSURE
Despite U.S. Ryder Cup Captain Paul Azinger saying he did whatever he could to take the pressure off his victorious team in 2008 and getting them to prepare like it was any other tournament, it's not any other tournament, and there is the added pressure of having 11 teammates counting on you. Golf, in most cases, is an individual sport, with nobody else to blame or praise when the final scores come rolling in. Not so at The Presidents Cup or Ryder Cup; personal accomplishment is noted, but is almost always overshadowed by the team result.

It's a little like going back to school.

"It's a lot like college golf," says three-time U.S. Ryder Cupper Chad Campbell. "You're still playing golf, but you feel a little added pressure. You don't want to let any of your teammates down, or your country down, or your Captain down. So it makes it a little bit tougher in that aspect."

But it does give the players the opportunity to build special relationships. With the world of professional golf already something of a fraternity, making a national team and spending a fairly isolated week with the best players in the game can have a lasting effect. For 51 weeks a year players might be just trying to beat everybody else, including their teammates, but for one week, all the flag-waving and fist-bumping and high-fiving brings 12 men together into a unified cheering section. It tends to spill over.

"You get to know them and their families, their wife and their kids, and you spend a lot of quality time together," says David Toms, a member of six national teams. "Not only do you go pulling for them that week, but then you end up pulling for them on a regular basis."

TEAM FOCUS
Every Ryder Cup or Presidents Cup captain goes about it differently, but the objective remains the same: Get 12 very successful stars to buy into a team concept. Easier said than done, but the benefits can be considerable.

From pre-event venue visits to ping-pong tournaments to guest speakers to pep rallies, tactics used to create team unity don't hit any shots or halve any holes, but they can have a profound impact on which team wins.

Team dinners are a constant. So are passionate speeches, either by guests or from players. When Tom Kite captained the 1997 U.S. Ryder Cup team, he had a video made of his players' professional highlights, set to Lee Greenwood's "Proud to be an American." Lee Janzen, a member of that team, said it proved such a rousing, patriotic, inspirational hit that the players asked to watch it together every night of the week.

This year's U.S. Presidents Cup Captain Fred Couples seeks a lighter approach. He'll have Michael Jordan as one of his honorary assistants, and while he had considered actor and comedian Robin Williams for an appearance with his team, Williams' recovery from heart surgery led him to invite magician and mind reader Matthew Furman, who impressed Couples at last year's ADT Skills Challenge.

Paul Azinger's system in 2008, when he split his 12-man team into three four-man pods, based mainly on shared personality traits, was praised by players as a stroke of genius, a big reason the Americans won back the Ryder Cup.

"Having the same four guys around each other all week, it was nice only having to really focus on the smaller number, while rooting hard for the bigger number," says Anthony Kim, who went 2-1-1 in his four matches.

"My advice can only be to try to create the best possible environment for the players," Azinger says, "You don't want them too loose, because when the bell rings it's on, and there's 600 million people watching, and you can't dodge that. My boys, we had fun, but they were engaged. They got the concept."

Says Corey Pavin, who played in three Ryder Cups, two Presidents Cups, served as an Assistant Captain at the 2006 Ryder Cup, and will lead the U.S. Ryder Cup team next year in Wales: "Whoever the team ends up being, we'll all have one common goal, and that's a pretty strong bond right there."