The 38th Ryder Cup is coming up here in just over a month, October 1st-3rd to be exact. It will be played on the newly constructed Celtic Manor Resort in Newport, South Wales. The cup is held every two years, pitting Europe’s best against USA’s best.

How are the teams chosen?

First of all, the teams are going to need captains:

Each continent’s respective golf head honcho’s are in charge of picking the golfer who will lead their team to victory. Generally, this man is a golfin’ veteran 40 years or older and who has won a major championship. But you can trust this caveman when he says that there are a lot of other politics that come into play.

PGA of America chose Corey Pavin.
The Tournament Committee of the European Tour chose Colin Montgomerie.

So the Captains are chosen, now where does the team come from?

The United States Team is made up of:

The top 8 players on the Ryder Cup Points list as of August 15th:

Phil Mickelson, Hunter Mahan, Bubba Watson, Jim Furyk, Steve Stricker, Dustin Johnson, Jeff Overton and Matt Kuchar

Corey Pavin also gets to choose 4 “captains picks” to join the team, and there has been some debate as to who he will choose, especially over Tiger Woods, who for the first time in a decade has failed to qualify for the team.

The European Team is made up of:

The top 4 players on the Ryder Cup World Cup points on August 29th.

As of right now, they are Lee Westwood, Rory McIlroy, Martin Kaymer and Graeme McDowell.

It also consists of the top 5 players, not already qualified, on the Ryder Cup European Points List.

Since the top 4 on the list are already qualified; Ian poulter, Ross Fisher, Francesco Molinari, Miguel Angel Jimonez and Paul Casey would make up the rest of qualifiers.

Montgomerie also gets his picks, but only 3.

What do you think Rock Heads? Who should the captains pick? What would your Ideal Ryder Cup team be?

~Scratch

P.S. USA is the current cup holder, but the European Team is looking really strong as of right now. Who do you think will take it this year?

First Point of Business:

The PGA Championship is over and Sean picked ‘em best for my Yahoo Fantasy Golf Group with his team Hit it Fat – Eat a Cat and will receive a $10 Gift Certificate to Rock Bottom Golf. Congrats Sean!

Next Order of Business:

Another week of Scratch’s Golf Trivia has come to an end. Here is a quick refresh of the New rules! Instead of 5 questions a day like it was before, I will only do 1 question per day for a total of 5 questions throughout the week (last week only had 4 because of the holiday). The first person to answer the question correctly will get 3pts, but you can earn a point for every correct answers you post (limit 1 per question).

Here’s last weeks questions:

What year was the PGA Championship established?
1916

Who was the oldest winner of the PGA Championship?
Julius Boros

Who was the youngest golfer to win the PGA Championship?
Gene Sarazen

The Professional Golfers Association was founded in February 1916, in which city?
New York City

Which 2 golfers hold the record for most PGA Championship wins with 5?
Walter Hagen and Jack Nicklaus

Congrats to Adarsh Vakharia who scored the most trivia points last week on Facebook, and to Armcchr on Twitter. Dennis Wong got the High Score on My Golfin’ Game. All three will get $10 in Caveman Cash to the Cave! Congrats again guys!

~Scratch

This Weekend’s PGA Championship came down to a playoff between Martin Kaymer and Bubba Watson who both shot a -11, 277 for the tournament.

The 3 hole playoff ended with Bubba Shooting a +1, and leaving Martin Kaymer to lay claim on the Wanamaker. Congrats Kaymer!

Grabbing just as much attention, however, is the call that kept Dustin Johnson out of the playoff. Johnson incurred a 2-sroke penalty for grounding his club in a bunker on the 18th hole. He didn’t contest the decision because he definitely ground his club. But there is question as to whether or not the location was a bunker.

His ball lay in an area off the fairway that had bean heavily trodden on by spectators, so it never crossed his mind that he was in a sand trap. And with more than 1,200 bunkers, not all of which were in play, making for a murky decision.

What do you think Rock Heads? Should Johnson have been given the 2 stroke penalty?

~Scratch

Bonus:
What about World’s 1 and 2? Well Tiger Woods shot a -2 placing him tied for 28th. Phil Mickelson did just a little bit better by shooting a -6 and tying for 12th. No Major Changes in the rankings, except Kaymer’s win boosted him to the #5 position.

Today Kicks off the 2010 PGA Championship, so before I get too involved in my opinions, Here is few quick list of the details:

Dates and Times: Thursday August 12th through Sunday August 15th

Where to Watch: 30 hours of live coverage! Thursday & Friday 1-8pm ET on TNT, Saturday and Sunday 11am to 2pm ET on TNT and from 2pm-8pm ET on CBS

Which Course is being played: Whistling Straits in Haven, Wisconsin, and she’s a par 72, 7,514 yarder Sitting along a 2 mile stretch of Lake Michigan

Whats the Style: We are talking old school links, modeled after some great courses in the UK and Ireland.

Have We Seen It Before: The course is only 12 yrs old, but has hosted the 2004 PGA Championship and the 2007 U.S Senior Open

Will We See It Again: Plans so far for the Whistling Straits to host the 2015 PGA Championship and the 2020 Ryder Cup!

How Many players on the field: 156

What’s the purse: $7.5 Million

If you want to play in the Championship you must be: one of the past 10 former PGA Championship winners, a winner of the Masters, U.S Open and Open Championship in the past 5 years, the current Senior PGA Champion, one of Top -15 players including ties from the 2009 PGA Championship, one of theTop-20 from PGA Professional National Championship, top-70 in official PGA Money Standings, a member of the 2008 U.S/European Ryder Cup Teams, a winner of a tournament co-sponsored or approved by the PGA Tour, or given one of the at-large Invitations chosen by PGA of America, of which they gave out 34.

Whats the weather looking like: Possible scattered storms through Saturday, temperatures in the upper 70’s to low 80’s.

Tee Times: You can find those here.

Ok, that’s out of the way, so lets get down to business.

This caveman has heard about “Complications” for the PGA Championship. It would appear that the World’s Top 3 Golfers are struggling with other things, shifting their focus away from the tournament.

Tiger Woods just shot his worst ever professional round ever at Firestone last week. He finished 18 over par, at a course where he had capture 7 titles out of his last 10 (well 11 now) appearances. Headlines have read, Tiger’s Pro career is over. But In This Caveman’s opinion, the pressure on Tiger Woods, had to have been suffocating. He was expected to do great things, not only by himself, but by his fans. After weeks of being in a slump, it would be hard to not allow that to have an affect on you.

To make matters worse, Ryder Cup Captain Corey Pavin was cited as saying “Tiger is a shoo-in” for the Us Team, even if he didn’t make the cut. Less than 24 hours, Pavin “tweeted” (that’s right folks, he made the announcement over Twitter) that he was misquoted. That Seems Professional to me.
So a week after once again disappointing himself and his fans, Tiger is Faced with the PGA Championship. The pressure may be explosive.

Then there is World’s #2 Phil Mickelson. How did he do at Firestone last week? Well let’s just say he finished after Tiger. But apparently he has an excuse. Days after he went in for treatment for Psoriatic Arthritis. He did, however, say that he suffered from intense pain in his hip, ankle, elbow, shoulder joints and tendons to the point where he couldn’t walk when he woke up several days at the U.S Open. He Tied for 4th in that event, so there is still hope. But what did Phil do when he was younger to cause him that much pain? Was he a line backer for the Steelers?

What about World #3 Lee Westwood? Well, he is out. He is in the middle of a 6-8 week rehab for a ruptured plantaris muscle in his right calf. What in the world are these golfers doing to themselves? Are these on the course injuries or were they out mud wrestling during the celebrity tournament in Tahoe? I do know that Lee has been trying to stay fit, you can check out his exercise regiment here.

So the World’s Top 3 are struggling, what does that mean for the PGA Tour?

Well I am definitely still completely excited for this tournament. There are going to be a bunch of great golfers on the field.

Here are a few of the Pairings that This Caveman is excited about:

This caveman is expecting a great tournament, and perhaps even some brilliant upsets. Maybe even John Daly will have a shining moment, beyond just with his outfits.

So who’s your pick Rock Heads?

~Scratch

Last weekend two Superstars turned sports villains,Tiger Woods and Lebron James, were in Akron, Ohio. This caveman will admit that he jumped on the media bandwagon and loosely wrote a blog about it. What I didn’t expect, was for the media to attempt to create such a fierce farcical a rivalry between the two. It was almost as if the two were going to meet in the center of the UFC Octagon for a face-to-face showdown.

I will also admit that, while this is unfair to the guys, it would be one heck of a match up. I would probably dish out some cash if happened to have popped up on pay-per-view Saturday night.
This got me to reminiscing about Celebrity Deathmatch, and how I was pretty sure I had seen Woods in an episode. I was right. Back in 2001, a clay version of Tiger fought Andre Agassi.

I started wondering about what other sports figures went a round of fisty-cuffs in the Celebrity Deathmatch Arena.

Here is what I came up with:

• Michael Jordan vs Dennis Rodman
• Evander Holyfield vs Mike Tyson
• OJ Simpson vs Joe Namath
• Mark Mcgwire vs Sammy Sosa
• Dale Earnhardt vs Jeff Gordon
• Tony Hawk vs Bam Margera
• Kobe Bryant vs Shaquille O’Neal
• Anna Kournikova vs Danica Patrick
• Chris Pontius vs Mark Zupan
• Barry Bonds Vs Bud Selig

A little while back I also asked my Facebook Rock Heads which golfers they would like to see duke it out. John Daly came up often, as well as Phil Mickelson vs Tiger, or Tiger vs Jack Nicklaus in his prime.

What do you think Rock Heads? Which Sports stars would you like to see turned into clay and take their chances in the Death Match Arena? Or better yet, maybe even actually the UFC Octagon or a boxing ring?

~Scratch

Bonus: Even though Celebrity Deathmatch is done using clay-mation, it can still get pretty graphic. But if you would like to see the Woods vs Agassi fight, you can here.

Another week of Scratch’s Golf Trivia has come to an end. Here is a quick refresh of the New rules! Instead of 5 questions a day like it was before, I will only do 1 question per day for a total of 5 questions throughout the week (last week only had 4 because of the holiday). The first person to answer the question correctly will get 3pts, but you can earn a point for every correct answers you post (limit 1 per question).

Here’s last weeks questions:

Which Golfer posted a 55 for a full round of golf in 1962, and is still the only to have ever done so?
Homero Blancos

Who was the first Champion of the Turning Stone Resort Championship?
Steve Flesch

How many PGA Tour wins does Lee Westwood have?
Only 2 so far!

Who are the 2 US Open Winners with 3 letter last names?
Ernie Els and Ted Ray

Where and when was Jack Nicklaus’ first pro victory?
Oakmont Country Club at the 1962 US Open

Congrats to Mike Matosziuk, who scored the most trivia points last week on Facebook, and to Jdnorthwest on Twitter. Mike Matosziuk also got the High Score on My Golfin’ Game. Congrats again guys!

~Scratch