IF YOU were to characterise Hunter Mahan's crass rant this week as the mealy-mouthed threats of a terminally pampered and over-indulged country-club brat, few would disagree with you. But they'd be wrong too.
While the 26-year-old rising star of US golf chose to express himself in a typically objectionable manner, that shouldn't mask the fact that much of what he said corresponds precisely with what the majority of America's best golfers privately – and
increasingly publicly – think about the Ryder Cup.
Just in case you've been on a beach in Magaluf for the past week and missed Mahan's verbal salvo on the subject, here are the edited highlights. "From what I've heard the Ryder Cup isn't fun," he said. "The fun is sucked right out of it. You've got dinners every night – not little dinners, massive ones. As players, that's the last thing we want. We want to prepare ourselves. You're just a slave that week.
"From what I've heard the whole week is extremely long. At some point the players might say, 'You know what – we're not doing this anymore, because this is ridiculous'. Don't be surprised if it (a refusal to play] happens. It's just not a fun week like it should be. Is it an honour to play? Yes, it is. But (the players'] time is valuable. This is a business."
At first sight it looks like an mercenary assault on the whole ethos of the Ryder Cup, a reprise of Tiger Woods' view expressed the week before the 2002 Ryder Cup that he "could think of a million good reasons" why he'd rather play in a lucrative World Championship event rather than the Ryder Cup. Yet, like that Tiger quip, which was said with his tongue wedged firmly in his cheek, it is easy to take Mahan's words out of their rightful context.
The real background to his outburst is the ongoing battle between the top American players and the PGA of America, not just over the future of the Ryder Cup but over the financial transparency of an organisation which exists for the benefit of club professionals rather than the game's elite.
The Grand Slam of Golf event, organised by the PGA most years in Hawaii and pitting the year's four Major winners against each other, is an even bigger bone of contention than the Ryder Cup. Indeed, both Phil Mickelson and Woods have made their excuses at various stages rather than take part in a jamboree of junketing from the army of blazer-wearing, golf ball-selling, coke-machine-merchandising salesmen who dominate the PGA.
Legends of the American game such as Woods, Mickelson, David Duval and Mark O'Meara have been open about the reason for their antipathy towards an organisation which has all the financial transparency of the average MP's expenses claims. They also have a lukewarm attitude towards the USPGA and want the Players Championship – owned, controlled and completely accountable to the US Tour – to formalise its position as "the fifth Major".
Our own PGA long ago relinquished any rights to the Ryder Cup after Ken Schofield and the European Tour realised that they provided the venue, the infrastructure and the players and swiftly staged a bloodless putsch. Unlike their American counterparts, every European player now knows exactly how every penny made from the game's greatest revenue-raiser is spent.
Meanwhile, America's golfers fume over a lack of answers in a dispute that isn't about money but control. Mahan isn't going to win many awards for his public relations skills, but he did bring to the fore an issue that refuses to go away.
"I just feel like the players don't have much control over it (the Ryder Cup] and I don't think they like that," said Mahan. "I think Europe really, really takes it seriously. I think the US 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 couldn't care less about winning it, honestly. They pick a site where they're going to have the Senior PGA, the PGA and the Ryder Cup, which means less money they have to pay out to get more money."
This year's American Ryder Cup captain Paul Azinger says that he will only consider players who really want to play for their country, who would be devastated to be left out. Yet several of the top eight American players who are automatic picks are known to be privately ambivalent about playing in an event over which they have no control, no ownership. Tiger, for one, won't be crying into his soup at the prospect of missing this year's set-to at Valhalla. The same is true of several of the leading candidates for a wildcard pick, of whom Mahan was one (conceivably he could be an automatic pick by September, which would be interesting).
All of which means an impending Catch 22 which is Europe's worst nightmare. Unless the American players feel they have a say, they have made it clear they will quit the Ryder Cup sooner rather than later, yet the PGA, which owns the rights, has no intention of giving up its main source of revenue. Meanwhile the European Tour can do nothing as the cash-cow which underwrites its whole programme withers on the vine before its very eyes.
Monty will probably lead out Europe when the Ryder Cup comes to Gleneagles in 2014. The question is what sort of American team his players will face.
The full article contains 952 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
