Damon Hack of the NY Times reports on the boys’ road trip of the U.S. Ryder Cup team a couple of weeks ago “to bond” before this week’s matches (and to try and figure out why the U.S. has gotten creamed four out of the last five matches). However, as Hack (what a great name for a golf writer!) notes in the article, Houston’s Jack Burke, a former Ryder Cup member and one of Hal Sutton’s assistant captains on the U.S. Ryder Cup that got scorched two years ago, suggested in his recent book Itís Only a Game that the reason the U.S squad is getting beaten so regularly is really quite simple — the U.S. team members have made so much money through the years that they have become soft.
In this GolfforWoman.com article, Clear Thinkers favorite Dan Jenkins expands on Burke’s thought in explaining why so many PGA Tour sponsors want Michelle Wie to play in their tournament:

As a sponsor, the tour says, it’s okay if I sell tickets, but my main job is to help 200 guys I’ve never heard of make a lot of money. They need to make all this money so they can live in one of those tract mansions, probably on the water hole of a golf course in a gated community where it’ll be safe to let their urchins run loose and annoy people.
Near as I can tell, they deserve to be rich because they know how to hit a golf ball. Doesn’t matter that they’ve never read a book that didn’t have a cure for the slice in it, and they resist thinking about anything beyond the next Marriott.

I’m talking about a guy like–I’ve looked it up–one of the 47 PGA Tour players who made more than a million bucks in prize money last year, although he didn’t win a golf tournament.
Or like one of the 10 guys out there who won more than two million dollars last year but didn’t win a tournament.
Did you hear me? Ten guys go squat, diddly, Circle O Ranch, the Big Empty, but they’re allowed to scoop two mil.
Is this a great country or what?–as people used to say before the saying got worn out.
Some people might want to come back in the next life as Chris DiMarco. Here’s a guy who clipped the sponsors for a little more than $3.5 million last year while not winning a golf tournament. Uh-huh. Three point five and oh-for-trophy.
You might wonder how many fans he lured into the 24 tournaments he entered in 2005 while he was not winning but banking all that coin. My educated guess is none. His wife would be a comp, as would the two Florida Gators pals who might happen to be in town.
Nothing against DiMarco, a perfectly charming fellow and capable golfer. It’s the system. Tyranny from the bottom. That’s what I’ve been calling it for years. DiMarco and those other winless guys are merely taking advantage of it. The fact is, Phil and Tiger are the only golfers who sell tickets these days. The spectacle sells the rest. The tournament comes to town, and it’s a social event, a happening, a picnic, a kegger, a few days loafing around on the rich guy’s lawn.