Corey Pavin Could Make History with Travelers Playoff Win

With a win in the playoff at the Travelers Championship, Corey Pavin would become the first "modern" Ryder Cup captain to become a winner on the PGA Tour in the year he captained the team.

The last man to win a tournament in the same year they captain the United States was Jerry Barber.  He won the 1961 PGA Championship.  He bested Don January in an 18 hole playoff by a single stroke.

Tom Kite had the best record in very recent memory.  In 1997, he finished second to Tiger at the Masters.  He finished fifth at the PGA Championship. Twelve years prior, Lee Trevino accomplished the same feat in the PGA Championship.

Ben Crenshaw had by far the worst.  Leading into the '99 Ryder Cup, Gentle Ben missed every cut that year.  For that matter, Dave Stockton did the same thing in 1991.  Curtis Strange made two cuts in '02, finishing in the mid-60s in both.

Clearly, Jack Nicklaus has been the best captain in terms of performance during a competition year.  Nicklaus finished runner-up three times in 1983.  1987 was not so kind to Jack, but he did finish in 7th at the Masters in defense of his '86 title.

The ageless one, Tom Watson, had a good run in 1993.  He finished fifth in both the US Open and PGA Championship that year.  In 2006, another Tom - this one being Lehman - nearly won the last International but lost in a playoff to Dean Wilson.

Back when the Ryder Cup was quite a bit different than it is today - then, a biannual pasting of GB&I - Arnold Palmer lost the 1963 US Open in a playoff to Julius Boros.  That represented an era when players that were still fairly active also served as team captain.

We'll see what a part-time PGA Tour player can do in this playoff.