furyk can earn his tiger stripes
Furyk - looks set to partner the Tiger.
By Mark Garrod, PA Sport Golf Correspondent
First there was Mark O'Meara. Then Justin Leonard. Then Tom Lehman. Then there was David Duval. Then Steve Pate. Then Paul Azinger, Mark Calcavecchia, Davis Love, Phil Mickelson, Chris Riley. Then Love again. They have all been tried. Now Jim Furyk seems certain to be tried as well. As what? The answer is as Tiger Woods' partner in the Ryder Cup. Captains Tom Kite, Ben Crenshaw, Curtis Strange and Hal Sutton have all wrestled with the issue. Who's best alongside the best? Lehman is now the man in charge with the decision to make. But Jack Nicklaus may have done the job for him. At last September's Presidents Cup Woods started out with Fred Couples, but after they were beaten by Adam Scott and Retief Goosen on the opening day Nicklaus linked Woods with Furyk. They beat Mark Hensby and Stuart Appleby, halved with Vijay Singh and Appleby, then beat the same pair. Success at last. At long last. After a run which saw Woods's Ryder Cup record in team play read five wins, one half and 10 defeats and his Presidents Cup record - with Couples, Leonard, John Huston, Notah Begay, Charles Howell and then Couples again tried as his partner - read five wins and eight defeats. Including, incredibly, six losses out of six in fourballs. The format where you would think that having a partner mattered far less. Lehman has no easy explanation for Woods's poor return, but he has addressed the subject. "Quite frankly, I think a lot of guys are somewhat intimidated to play with Tiger," he said. "I think they feel if they play poorly, 'It's going to be my fault.' "I really want to work to iron out any of that feeling among any of the players. I think a successful build-up to the Ryder Cup would allow any player to play with any other player simply because of the fact there's a shared respect. "There's a bond of wanting to win this Ryder Cup and everybody is pulling to that common goal." What makes a good pair is something that every captain thinks long and hard about. Woods offered this on his partnership with Furyk: "Even though we have different styles of games our personalities are very similar in how we approach the game of golf and how we compete. "So from that standpoint it's kind of a no-brainer. I think the difference in length off the tee can be something that deters captains from putting guys together, but as well as our approach we read putts very similar." Furyk would be Woods's 11th different partner in the Ryder Cup. He might be the first to play a whole match with him.
