With the completion of the PGA Championship this past weekend, the eight automatic qualifiers for the 12-man 2008 U.S. Ryder Cup team were named for next month’s matches at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville (Sept. 16-21).  U.S. team captain Paul Azinger will complete the 12-member roster by announcing his four Captain’s selections Tuesday, Sept. 2, at 10 a.m. at the Hotel Martinique on Broadway in New York City.

The automatic qualifiers are the following:

Player                 Points

Phil Mickelson    5,342.500

Stewart Cink      4,952.665

Kenny Perry       4,480.700

Jim Furyk           4,423.892

Anthony Kim     4,035.296

Justin Leonard  3,379.274

Ben Curtis         3,120.061

Boo Weekley     2,785.095

My sense is that this group isn’t sending shivers up the spine of the European team, which has recently dominated the U.S. team, winning four of the past five matches. The U.S. team is younger than prior teams with three of the eight (Ben Curtis, Anthony Kim and Boo Weekley) participating in their first Ryder Cup. Phil Mickelson is the veteran of the U.S. team by virtue of making his seventh consecutive appearance in the matches, but he is coming off a pathetic 1-7-1 record in the past two matches.

At least Mickelson played reasonably well over the past two weeks, contending for both titles and tying for seventh at the PGA Championship. Likewise, Furyk (29th) and Weekley (20th) played decently at the PGA even though they were not in contention for the title, while Curtis played very well in tying for second place.

However, Kim and Justin Leonard disappeared during the weekend rounds, Stewart Cink didn’t even make the cut and Kenny Perry withdrew after the first round after scratching his cornea with a wayward contact lense. Leonard and Perry have never won a Ryder Cup match, and Mickelson, Furyk and Cink have an aggregate Ryder Cup record of 18-29-10.

Meanwhile, Euro team members Padraig Harrington (first place), Sergio Garcia (second place tie with Curtis), Henrik Stenson (tied for fourth) and Justin Rose (tied for ninth) were stellar during the PGA Championship.

Is anyone else getting a bad feeling about this year’s matches? At least the U.S. team won’t have to deal with being the favorite going into the matches.