Really. And not even because Seve Ballesteros is wishing bad things for Nick Faldo's captaincy. He's just worried the competition is becoming too boring, what with Europe kicking Yankee butt every two years:

"They need to win badly," said the five-time Major winner. "I hope the Americans win this year in all seriousness.

"I see the Ryder Cup getting very boring because we are beating them so badly. Everybody is losing interest. I think it will be good if they win the next one. It would give the Ryder Cup a lift.

"I just hope the matches are a little bit closer because they have been no-contests. My heart is always with the Europeans but my head is with the Americans for the good of the trophy."

Seve has a good point. If one side or the other wins every single time, the Ryder Cup goes from one of the most stirring events in sports to "wake me when it's over."

Like from the late 1930s to the early 1980s, when the U.S. team won nearly every Ryder Cup played. And nobody cared about the Ryder Cup. It was a quaint little competition in which, on one occasion, a British newspaperman played when one of the Brit team members dropped out with an injury or illness; when everyone acknowledged that a big U.S. victory was a foregone conclusion and so nobody got agitated or upset or jingoistic; when the governing bodies were constantly tinkering with the format and scoring trying to figure out some way to keep the Brits in it - at least until the singles matches.

And the general public couldn't have cared less. Until a movement spearheaded by Jack Nicklaus resulted in the Great Britain & Ireland team expanding to include members from all across Europe; and until Seve Ballesteros led a new wave of European golfers to major championship - and then Ryder Cup - prominence.

The Ryder Cup isn't in danger of dropping off the radar screen of the sporting world at large any time soon. But for a sense of balance to be restored, Seve is right: The Americans need to win this year.