Bill Elliott : Golf
While the battlefield for the thirty-second Ryder Cup, Valderrama, is the corner of some foreign field for the first time in the great matchs history, it is the generals who are about to sit high on its hills who encourage the greater interest as we contemplate what surely should turn out to be an enthralling encounter between Europe and the United States.
Certainly it would be hard to identify two more outwardly different men than Severiano Ballesteros and Tom Kite. While the Spaniard wears his passion on his sleeve, Kite prefers to keep his emotions tightly buttoned up. Sleeves, as far as the bespectacled Texan is concerned, are sites for a sponsors logo. Emotion is something a man carefully packs away somewhere else. Unsurprisingly, this steely competitor is the son of a former US tax inspector.
Each man has arrived at this ultimate accolade as skipper via startlingly contrasting routes. For Seve, until recently, golf has been a game to caress, a vehicle by which he expresses his character. High imagination, exquisite touch, perhaps genius, have been the hallmarks of a wonderful career. Here is a cavalier, a man who enjoys leading from the front, the most natural sporting leader I have ever encountered.
Philip Walton, the Irishman whose stuttering but ultimately successful climax to his singles match at Oak Hill two years ago sealed an outrageous and unexpected victory for Europe, will be watching the Ryder Cup this time with his feet up at home, a beer in his hand. Even in this position, however, Walton expects to feel at least some of the force of the Ballesteros personality as the captain charges around Valderrama exhorting his players to ever more effort.
There is no doubt that Seve has something special about him, its a sort of force that you can physically feel, Walton says. He is the sort of man other men follow, and I expect him to be something else out in Spain. My only worry is that he gets too emotional and excited about it all. He will be trying to play everybodys shot for them and that is not what is required. All the players are great golfers and they know what they are doing.
Id like to see Seve go so far and then step back. He mustnt crowd them because they need space. The other people around him who are there to help should try to make sure that he doesnt overstep the mark. Mind you, hes a hard man to rein in when hes in full flight.
The three men charged with keeping Ballesteros on at least something close to an even keel are his vice-captain, Miguel Jimenez, Tommy Horton and Mark James. Of this trio the main burden seems likely to fall on to James, a Mancunian so phlegmatic he chose to live near Leeds. James is a Ryder Cup veteran, of course, a nearly great player whose main passion is gardening and whose great interest is Star Trek.
Now he is about to go where no man has been before by trying to encourage Ballesteros to remain calm and Spock-like logical when all hell is breaking loose this weekend. He knows just how tough this is likely to be and merely chuckles while shaking his head by way of reply when asked about his strategy. What is certain is that victory over the Americans is crucial both to European golf generally and to Ballesteros personally. The shortage of genuinely fresh stars on the home tour is alarming, and if the European circuit is to continue to grow then one or two need to show this weekend.
Ballesteros, meanwhile, is a man with something to prove. His place in the games history may be assured already, but so far he has made a bit of a hash of being a captain. His reluctance to involve senior players in his deliberations until the 11th hour has rankled with men who consider themselves his sporting equal, while his handling of the Miguel Martin situation seemed both unnecessarily insensitive and embarrassing.
While there is now no doubt that the Spanish golfer is not fit enough to play in the match, Martin has discovered that Ballesteros is at his most cruelly unflinching when someone else is trying to stop him getting his way.
The whole messy business has left a sour taste in many mouths and the majority of European players are seriously upset about both the haste of the decision to jettison Martin and the cack-handed way the affair was presented to a media world more accustomed to a smooth PR approach.
It is perhaps for this reason that Walton echoes the feelings of many of those left in the chorus line when he says that if we win the Ryder Cup then Seve will have been a great captain. If we dont …
Kite, meanwhile, has not put a foot wrong in the build-up to the match. Now 47, he remains an aloof man, uncomfortable with reporters for the most part and someone to whom arrogance and solitude seem to come naturally. The archetypal little man, he has spent his adult sporting life wringing everything he can out of a talent that owes more to application and determination than to natural ability. When a journalist once asked him if perhaps he sometimes tried too hard his reply came back swiftly and sharply: What dyou suggest, that I should try less?
There is however no doubting this mans competitive spirit. Ballesteros may look like a warrior on the hoof while Kite more closely resembles the chap in charge of admin, but no one should misinterpret this for a character less than totally committed to the cause.
Its my belief that the captains who have been most successful have been the ones who have managed to take the pressure off their players, to make it easier for them to go out there and concentrate on playing golf and winning, Kite says. Everything else, I promise you, I will take care of.
Ill also tell them that it is okay to feel nervous, to be scared. You just dont want to be so scared you cant function properly. Listen, everyones nervous in a Ryder Cup but this is part of the fun. If you can take that feeling and use it to concentrate then its the greatest feeling in the world.
So what of the players these two very opposite men will try to turn into a cohesive unit over three days of fourballs, foursomes and singles? Each, naturally, has claimed his 12-man side is the best there has ever been, and each is whistling at the moon. The 1981 American team was better than any side ever to play in the match, while Europes 1987 squad was several light years ahead of the present unit.
What is beyond doubt is that the Americans have greater strength in depth. Glance at the world rankings and you will note that their bottom placed man, Lee Janzen, is currently No 38 while Europes Ignacio Garrido limps in at 74. Perhaps more significantly, the Americans have nine players in the top 20, Europe just two in Colin Montgomerie and Nick Faldo.
Kite can also boast the holders of three of the years four majors in Tiger Woods (Masters), Justin Leonard (British Open) and Davis Love (USPGA). Europes last major winner was Nick Faldo when he took the Masters title 18 months ago.
These, however, are not insurmountable statistics. Two years ago the Europeans produced the sporting performances of the year by thrashing the Americans in the final-day singles, and who is to say they cannot do it again? Certainly in Faldo, Montgomerie, Langer, Woosnam and Olazabal they have players of experience and desire.
Victory in the end should go to the team who build a barricade around themselves, and it is here that Europe should have the edge. Strokeplay may be a better test of golf but matchplay is the better test of character. And no one knows this better than the European captain.