Davis Love Makes a Great Point About the Ryder Cup

Love thinks Ryder Cup has too many people involved

By DOUG FERGUSON, AP Golf Writer |

NAPLES, Fla. (AP) — One of the messages Davis Love III wants to bring to the 11-member Ryder Cup Task Force is that it has gotten too big.

He said the amount of scheduled time at the Ryder Cup is about double what the Americans spend at the PresidentsCup, which is understandable because the Ryder Cup gets about double the interest.

What really concerns him is the size of the team party.

Love, the captain in 2012 at Medinah, said the U.S. team has expanded so much over the years that it is losing its intimacy. He thought back to his first Ryder Cup team in 1993, when Tom Watson was the captain and had a friend as his assistant. The players and their wives were in the team room and "all we did was hang out."

"Now it's all the PGA officers, all their wives, all the caddies, all their wives, all the 'strap hangers' in this big room," Love said last month at the McGladrey Classic. "The intimacy of the team has changed. ... They do a lot for us to give us the Ryder Cup. But do they need to be in the room? It's like a traveling circus. When you go to dinner, it's not the team that goes to dinner. It's 30 more people."

Love said when he was an assistant captain in Wales, he planned to drive his own cart around Celtic Manor. Instead, a PGA officer was assigned as his cart driver. It actually worked out well because of the rain, but it was another example of the U.S. team becoming the U.S. entourage.

"It's grown to where instead of being 12, 13 guys and sometimes the wives ... to this huge mass of people," Love said. "A lot of things have changed. It's not bad. It's just we need to get back to what the players want to make it feel like a team."

Love said the first meeting of the task force was to be held either the first or second week in December. The PGA of America has its annual meeting the weekend before Thanksgiving. He said a second meeting is expected the first week of February, around the time of the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines.