Torrance counts on the Ryder effect

Form gives little cheer, so cup itself will have to spark players

As Curtis Strange said: "Everything is different this year because of the delay." The postponement of the Ryder Cup at The Belfry from last September to this September was unprecedented, and so have been the consequences.

"We knew it was going to be different," the United States captain added. "I think the first thing that came to mind was that there would not be the buzz for the players trying to make the team and for the two picks. Who would they be? It's great writing. It's great bar-room talk. It was good fun."

Without that buzz, what has come into the void? Initially not very much, and the build-up to the match, which starts at The Belfry on 27 September, will perhaps only pick up at the point where it left off last year in the last couple of weeks.

But without the traditional concentration on something positive, like who is playing well enough to get in the team, or to be picked as a wild card, too many negatives have surfaced. Chief among them has been the form of the players. The European team would not have felt under more scrutiny in the Big Brother house. It started at The Belfry itself, when the Benson and Hedges International was played there in May. Ten of the team played, five of them missed the cut. How much did it matter?

What, indeed, was the relevance of the performances of the team at the US PGA Championship at Hazeltine last week? Sam Torrance, Europe's captain, argued not a lot, and to an extent he is right. "The PGA has never been a great one [influence]," Torrance said. "It's always hot and humid and over the years we've not performed that well, so I'm not going to look that deeply into it. It's always a tough one for us.

"They [the United States] have had quite a few players struggling and we are certainly not in a worse position than they are. With the excitement of the cup, it can lift you from the depths of despair to the heights of your game."

The Ryder Cup format is so different from normal tournament play that defining trends in form and extrapolating them to the match is often unhelpful. If things get close, experience of tense situations is often more important. But there is a limit, and Strange himself found that out at Oak Hill in 1995. Picked as a wild card by Lanny Wadkins for his experience rather than his form, Strange did not win a point and bogeyed the last three holes to lose to Nick Faldo in the pivotal singles.

How often have players said that the Ryder Cup arena is not one to be entered playing badly? Yet on this occasion there is not much to be done. "Everyone is worthy of representing their country because they made the team to start with," said Strange when asked if any players might consider withdrawing due to poor form (rather than injury).

"Just because their form went bad because of an attack on our country, then I still think they should be part of the team. For the first two days, you don't have to play all 12. If somebody is not in good form, or they get flu, they don't have to play until Sunday. You don't go into battle with all 12 in perfect shape all the time, but you have to go into battle. I kind of like that."

How the captains deploy their players may be more interesting, and more relevant, this year. Strange added: "When has the Ryder Cup ever been played with 24 of the best players in the world at that time? Probably never."

Pedantically, you could say that is correct because of all the non-American and non-Europeans at the top of the game. But if the question was whether the match has been played without the best available teams, then the answer must be not in the time that the match has reached the heights that it has.

The eight members of the European team who missed the cut at Hazeltine did so with a collective 77 over par. It was a depressing statistic. Some of the players have become twitchy that their form has been so scrutinised, but in golf there is no other measure than the score returned after each round. When those scores are in the 80s, as some were at Hazeltine, they become difficult to ignore.

In the US team, Hal Sutton has had a shocking season but Strange will rely on him as a strong character. David Duval has been out of sorts, but Paul Azinger has got over a little injury. For Europe, Sergio Garcia and Padraig Harrington are the only two players to have gone up in the world rankings. Garcia finished in the top 10 in all four Majors and Harrington would have matched him had he finished a shot better at Hazeltine, despite having an ankle injury for the first two days and a neck problem for the last two. Then there is Colin Montgomerie's troublesome back to worry about. The recurring problem caused the man Torrance has called his "rock" to withdraw from this weekend's world championship event in Seattle.

Six of the team have made serious moves down the world rankings. The worst, of course, is Lee Westwood, from 16th to 144th. But the Worksop man has been working hard and his ever-optimistic manager, And-rew Chandler, thinks he is beginning to turn the corner. His scoring pattern at Hazeltine, with a number of doubles or worse, suggests the odd destructive shot remains. While you might not risk him in the foursomes, a fourball partnership with Darren Clarke could still be on the cards.

The speculation is endless. It is a different Ryder Cup, but the waiting is the worst thing.

Torrance's troubled team

Europeans in world rankings now... ...and at the time of selection

5 Sergio Garcia 7 Sergio Garcia
7 Padraig Harrington 8 Darren Clarke
17 Darren Clarke 10 Colin Montgomerie
18 Colin Montgomerie 13 Padraig Harrington
27 Bernhard Langer 16 Lee Westwood
28 Jose Maria Olazabal* 20 Thomas Bjorn
33 Niclas Fasth 21 Bernhard Langer
37 Justin Rose* 22 Jesper Parnevik
41 Thomas Bjorn 31 Niclas Fasth
49 Jesper Parnevik 40 Paul McGinley
53 Nick Faldo* 42 Miguel Angel Jiminez
56 Paul Lawrie* 44 Pierre Fulke
59 Anders Hansen* 55 Jose Maria Olazabal*
65 Paul McGinley 56 Phillip Price
72 Thomas Levet * 66 Ian Woosnam*
75 Soren Hansen* 72 Andrew Coltart*
77 Carl Pettersson* 74 Ian Poulter*
87 Pierre Fulke 75 Henrik Stenson*
90 Phillip Price 81 Andrew Oldcorn*
98 Ian Woosnam* 84 Nick Faldo*
99 Greg Owen 87 Robert Karlsson*
100 Fredrick Jacobson* 89 Matthias Gronberg*
144 Lee Westwood 94 Gary Orr*

* denotes player not in Ryder Cup team