Notebook: Faldo defended by the team that beat him
By Helen Ross, PGATOUR.COM Chief of Correspondents
ATLANTA -- Count Hunter Mahan among those who think Nick Faldo's getting too much criticism on the other side of the pond for the European defeat at the Ryder Cup.
After all, Mahan pointed out, Faldo has won more Ryder Cup points than any other European. He's won three Masters and a trio of Open Championships, as well.
"I think someone said, 'This kills everything he's ever done in his career,'" said Mahan, who is one of 10 U.S. Ryder Cup players competing in THE TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola this week. "I think that's a bit much for a guy who's won six majors, was No. 1 in the world for a long time. That's pretty tough.
"But he was bold in his picks and he was bold in his selections. Sitting out (Lee) Westwood and Sergio (Garcia) was shocking definitely to us to see that. But you can see how much it means to them, to the European side, and to us, to play and to win that. But that's pretty tough. That's tough for him to go back to.
"You definitely feel for him, because he definitely doesn't deserve all that."
Jim Furyk wasn't surprised, though. Not because he thought Faldo did a bad job, but because he knows what the last three losing U.S. captains -- Curtis Strange, Hal Sutton and Tom Lehman -- endured.
"It's part of the job," Furyk said. "When you take it you need a thick skin, and you need to realize that you're either going to be the hero or the goat. ...
"Having Lee Westwood kind of come to his aid and say, 'We hit the shots.' We felt the same way for Curtis and Hal and for Tom. These guys poured their hearts into it. They put in two years, some of them flying back and forth to England and Ireland and all that goes into it, all the thought, the gifts, just wanting it to be special for their 12 players.
"Then we don't play all that well, things don't go right, and they get basted. So that's part of the job. If you can't deal with it then you shouldn't take it. But most of those players, most of those men, got to the position they did in the game and got chosen as a captain because they took some criticism along the way and it didn't bother them and they thrived anyway."
Furyk happily tired after Ryder Cup clincher
Furyk is making his 11th start in THE TOUR Championship this week and he has six top-10s, including two runner-up finishes.
The man who earned the clinching point at the Ryder Cup at Sunday, though, admits he is somewhat drained as he comes to East Lake this week.
"My game is in good shape physically, but we're all a little bit worn out after last week," said Furyk who went 2-1-1 at Valhalla. "I found that at 38 I don't recover like I do at 23. I knew that, actually, but I've proven it once again.
"We really had a good time and I enjoyed it. There's probably pretty much nothing you could see to keep me from happy for a little while longer after last week's win."
The only thing that put a damper on the weekend was Furyk's beloved Steelers' 15-6 loss to Philadelphia on Sunday.
"Well, like I said, if one of us had to lose, I'm glad it was them," Furyk said. "They have 13 more. I gotta wait two more years. So I'm glad they took one for us."
Penultimate hole at East Lake gets dramatic alteration
Among several changes to East Lake Golf Club for this year's TOUR Championship were some dramatic alterations at the par-4 17th hole.
The fairway has been moved to the left so it nestles up to East Lake, which dominates the center of the property. A new complex of three bunkers was built on the opposite side and a new green was constructed closer to the water.
"I think it's great," Camilo Villegas said. "I played it yesterday. Having all that water there, why not use it? It definitely makes it a tougher hole.
"The green is going to be very firm. It's going to be very tough to stop shots there, especially to that left side, because it runs a little bit away and toward the water. So it'll be interesting. It'll be interesting to see what happens, and I'm sure once the greens mature a little bit, they might get a little bit softer. It's a great hole."
Hunting for some emotion
Mahan's outburst of emotion when he holed a 40-foot putt on the 17th green at Valhalla on Sunday may have surprised some people.
But not the normally laid-back Mahan, who followed the putt, which put him 1 up on Paul Casey with five fist pumps as he scooted across the green.
"If you ever watch me play Madden '08 or '09, you would have seen that guy, too," he said. "It's definitely in me. When you go out and play golf four days I'm trying my best to conserve every amount of energy I have so Sunday on the back nine, I've got a lot left.
"But that's definitely inside of me, and I think ... personally I was waiting for a moment like that. Anybody who plays golf wants to be in that Ryder Cup situation where you have a huge moment like that."
Captain Love?
Davis Love III is being mentioned on the short list of candidates to captain the U.S. Ryder Cup Team in the future.
Love, who won the Payne Stewart Award on Tuesday, certainly fits the mold and would love to job someday. The 44-year-old won the 1997 PGA Championship and he has played in six Ryder Cups, as well as six Presidents Cups.
Right now, though, he's focused on making teams -- not guiding them. Love said he watched the Ryder Cup last week and he was a "nervous as I've ever been.
"But it didn't make me want to be the captain. It made me want to play."
Next up on Love's agenda is playing for his good friend, Fred Couples, in the Presidents Cup next October at Harding Park in San Francisco. He's well down on the list at No. 122, though, and only the top 10 automatically qualify.
Points are based on money earned, and the points are doubled in 2009. So Love needs to play well between now and next year's PGA Championship when the automatic qualifiers are finalized. Couples will also have two Captain's Picks.
"I've watched Greg (Norman at the Open Championship) and Vijay (Singh), Kenny Perry -- right on down the line," Love said. "There's no reason I can't compete. It's a matter of getting my confidence back. It's not a lack of length; it's a lack of direction."
Love plans to play five of the next six weeks, calling it a "new start for me." A year ago next month, Love had planned to hit the Fall Finish hard before he tore ligaments in his ankle during a casual round of golf and had surgery that sidelined him until February.
"I waited until the last minute to study for the exam last year and then I didn't show up," Love said wryly.
'I need to gain 30 yards (and fast)'
Dudley Hart, a 17-year veteran who is making his TOUR Championship debut, is already a big fan of East Lake Golf Club. He was a little worried after playing his practice round on Tuesday, though.
"The general manager was out riding around, and I guess it was blowing out of (a) not normal wind direction, which made me feel a little bit better, because we had a 520-yard par 4 into the wind," Hart recalled. "We had a 600-yard par 5 into the wind. And couple 200-plus yard par 3s into the wind.
"I'm thinking, 'Holy cow.' Somehow I need to gain 30 yards before Thursday. If the wind switches a little bit around then those holes obviously play a little bit different. But I really enjoyed it. I loved there's a lot of tee shots you have to shape your ball different directions.
"Doglegs left to right, dogleg right to left, the fairways tilting where you need to curve it a little bit into fairways to keep it from running up out of one side. There's a really nice variety of shots out there."
Not always about the Benjamins
Hart earned his spot in THE TOUR Championship when he finished second at the BMW Championship and moved to 14th in the FedExCup standings. He birdied the last two holes at Bellerive that Sunday to seize the runner-up spot.
So what if Vijay Singh has the FedExCup and its $10 million bonus locked up? The man who lives in Buffalo -- "I never said I was smart," he joked -- has plenty of motivation. He wants to win his first tournament since the 2000 Honda Classic.
'It's a big tournament," Hart said. "They're still giving away a lot of money for first place. It's still a huge honor to win the tournament, so I don't think anybody is coming here any less prepared than they normally would be because they can't win that bonus at the end.
"It's a huge amount of money, but ... like some of my buddies asked me, 'How do you make that putt on the last hole at BMW?' After Anthony made bogey behind me, it probably made me $300,000 more. I said, 'That's the last thing you think about.' You don't think about the money.
"As crazy as that sounds, we're not all trying to play well every week so we can make that $10 million bonus in the FedExCup. It's nice. Believe me, I would love to have it. But it's not what drives you. What drives you is competing and playing well and succeeding."
A VCR? What's that?
Anthony Kim is not big on golf history, but he has good reason. The 23-year-old is too young to have watched the Ben Hogans, Bobby Jones and Byron Nelsons of the world on TV. Even the legendary Jack Nicklaus was way before his time.
"That's no disrespect to anybody that I maybe am not so familiar with," Kim said. "But the guys I grew up watching I'm playing with right now. They're Tiger, they're Phil, Ernie Els, Vijay Singh. I'm playing with all these guys."
And making his own history every time he tees it up.
Get the best deals on the best equipment all at the SHOP.PGATOUR.COM.
WIDGET
PGATOUR.com is part of the Turner Sports and Entertainment Digital Network