US hopes must rest on the young guns

INSIDE THE ROPES:MARK TWAIN once observed that the world's greatest swordsman need not fear the second-greatest swordsman; the one he should fear is the man who has never held a sword in his hand.

Publicly dissing Tiger Woods may have been impolitic on Rory McIlroy's part. It may even have been unwise, but his point is well taken. Going into this Ryder Cup there seemed to be no one in the American line-up whose very presence would cause his opponent to tremble on the first tee of singles play, and the performance of the alleged US stalwarts over three days has only reinforced that impression.

Yes, Woods played in two winning matches before he and Steve Stricker returned to mortality yesterday, but it more often seemed to be a case of his wing-man carrying Tiger than the other way around. The day may come again when Tiger Woods will intimidate opponents, but it won't be this morning.

After what unfolded in the completion of yesterday's matches it became more apparent than ever that US hopes today might rest on the young guns like Rickie Fowler, Jeff Overton and Bubba Watson, whose inexperience may well prove to be a virtue.

As their exuberant and sometimes reckless play has demonstrated, the young pros barely know where they are. More importantly, they haven't been tainted by the culture of failure that has characterised the recent generations of American Ryder Cuppers. They're having fun, they're happy just to be here, and their games show it.

Witness Overton holing out from the eighth fairway for eagle in his fourball match with Watson against Hanson and Jimenez. Witness Fowler's eagle from a greenside bunker on the 11th to briefly narrow the gap in his and Mickelson's game against Poulter-Kaymer. Witness the youthful spontaneity of their reactions. Try to imagine Mickelson doing one of those dances.

Corey Pavin may have implicitly acknowledged as much in making out the line-up cards for today's singles, although when he was pointedly asked "Where do you hide a Phil Mickelson," he pointedly replied, "There's nobody to hide. But thank you for asking."

In a real sense, being able to squeeze in the completion of yesterday's six matches was an immense relief to Pavin and Colin Montgomerie. Had that mop-up exercise been delayed until this morning, the singles would have been pushed back even further into the afternoon.

With an ironclad deadline of 6:43 pm, the likelihood is that as many as half of the singles might have been abandoned, and under the stipulated formula any unfinished match would have been declared a draw.

It goes without saying, then, that both captains would have top-loaded their line-ups and placed the also-rans near the bottom.

Having spent weeks embracing the team concept and insisting that no player was more important than another, the captains would have been forced to declare which of their dozen players they considered more equal than the others.

The composition of the field for today's singles has some interesting origins. Pavin said last night he had made up his 1-through-12 list Saturday night and that it remained unchanged after yesterday's calamitous afternoon. Montgomerie had earlier acknowledged having three separate batting orders - one in the event his team trailed, another for a deadlocked match, and a third, presumably the one unveiled, to be used if the Europeans had a lead to protect.

With the exception of the final game, where Graeme McDowell was held in reserve for the anchor spot in the event things go right down to the wire, the European line-up is nearly as top-heavy as it might have been for an afternoon start.

Pavin's is even more curious, particularly with respect to today's second game. Under more ordinary circumstances you might favour youth and exuberance in the fourth day of what has proven to be an even more gruelling event than anticipated, but you also must wonder whether young McIlroy might have already seen as much of Mr Cink as he cares to.

Off yesterday's form you'd have to say Francesco Molinari might represent the ideal tonic for Tiger.

But for our money, if Team USA is to have a chance of closing this gap, how Overton performs against Fisher, how Watson handles the guile of Jimenez, and how Fowler performs against Molinari's brother Eduardo will have much to say about it.