Tiger Woods obviously won't be playing in the next Ryder Cup. There has been some talk about making him an assistant captain, but today Woods put the kibosh on that idea:

"I'm not on the team," Woods wrote. "The event should be about the competitors and the competition. The guys will have plenty on their minds and I wish them the best. I'll be cheering loudly."

As per usual, a very sensible approach by Woods. Let the guys who are playing have the spotlight ... and get out of having to attend all those pompous ceremonies. Sure, if the American wins without him, Tiger will likely have to read silly columns about how Woods hurts the team when does play. But he's unlikely to care much about notions so silly.

In a post yesterday, Bill Jempty noted that Tom Weiskopf once skipped the Ryder Cup in favor of a hunting trip. Such a thing wasn't so unusual back in the day. Today, a player's patriotism would be called into question and he would suffer severe negative press and probably public reaction. Also ridiculous - playing a golf tournament (or any athletic event) has absolutely zilch to do with a person's patriotism or citizenship. But that's what would happen.

In a Q&A with Golf magazine, Hunter Mahan makes it clear that some American golfers today wish they could skip the Ryder Cup:

I just feel like the players don't have much control over it (the Ryder Cup), and I don't think they like that. I wouldn't like that.

... And from what I've heard the whole week is extremely long. You've got dinners every night - not litte dinners, but huge, massive dinners. I know, as players, that's the last thing we want to do. We want to prepare ourselves. That's part of the whole thing: you're just a slave that week. At some point the players might say: "You know what - we're not doing this anymore, because this is ridiculous."

Hmm, hope Mahan isn't on the bubble for selection, because Paul Azinger might bypass him after reading this. Then again, sounds like that wouldn't bother Mahan too much - unless the PGA of America started compensating the players either directly or through contributions to the players' charities:

The Presidents Cup sounds like fun. Has the Ryder Cup become a chore?
Phil Mickelson and Tiger - their time is worth money. And for the PGA of America, the Ryder Cup is a moneymaker like no other. They don't have to pay anything. I think when O'Meara said players should get paid or some of the money given to their charities, I think (O'Meara said that) because the PGA takes so much out of the event that the players don't really get anything. Is it an honor to play? Yes, it is. But their time is valuable. This is a business.

...

How do you explain the U.S. team's recent woes?
I think Europe really, really takes it seriously. I think the U.S. does, too, but not like Europe. For one, every place they hold a Ryder Cup in Europe is a place on the European Tour schedule. That's really smart because right away they have an advantage. The PGA of America could care less about winning it, honestly. They pick a site where they're going to have the Senior PGA, the PGA and Ryder Cup, which means less money they have to pay out to get more money. ...

Mahan's answer continues with the paragraph quoted at the end of the first text block above that begins "And from what I've heard ..." and ends with, "You know what - we're not doing this anymore, because this is ridiculous."

Which leads the interviewer to ask the question: "Guys might actually refuse to play?"

Don't be surprised if it happens. It's just not a fun week like it should be. The Presidents Cup is fun. Jack just makes it fun. We had a great time, we really enjoyed each other's company. From what I've heard, the Ryder Cup just isn't fun. The fun is sucked right out of it. That's the word I hear a lot.

Since I don't consider playing in a golf tournament a patriotic duty, I'm not bothered a bit by the idea that any given player might choose not to play in a Ryder Cup. What I find particularly interesting is the animosity Mahan expresses toward the PGA of America.

Good to know that some things never change. Bashing the PGA of America is longstanding sport among tour players, dating back to the days when the PGA of America ran the tour. Tour players first forced the PGA to create a Tournament Players Division within its organization, to separate the tour pros from the club pros. Then the tour pros finally broke away completely from the PGA of America and formed the quasi-rival PGA Tour.

In fact, the reason that Tom Weiskopf skipped the Ryder Cup 30-odd years ago to go hunting is that he was ticked off at the PGA of America! Years earlier, Weiskopf lost a Vardon Trophy because a form he had to mail in to the PGA had not been found by the required deadline. Back then, the PGA of America required tour pros to go through certification for Class A PGA Professional status. They had to be certified as club pros, in other words. And if the tour pro didn't get that certification, then the tour wasn't eligible for the Vardon Trophy, wasn't eligible to play on the Ryder Cup team, and wasn't eligible for many other goodies, either.

If a boycott of the Ryder Cup ever happened, or was ever threatened, it wouldn't be anything new in the relationship between touring pros and the PGA of America.

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.