Kite Should Have Picked Kite to Ryder Cup Team

If anyone else was captain of the U.S. Ryder Cup team except Tom Kite, one of the two captain’s choices to the squad would have been obvious--Tom Kite.

Few would have disagreed. It would have been a wise and popular pick.

And it would have been the right pick.

Kite has played in seven Ryder Cups. The 10 players who qualified on points for the U.S. team that will try and regain the Cup from Europe in Spain in three weeks have been in a combined total of only nine.

Nick Faldo has played in 10 for the Europeans.

This is a competition where experience is worth at least one hole a match.

Kite’s 15 victories in Ryder Cup play is surpassed among Americans only by Arnold Palmer, Lanny Wadkins and Jack Nicklaus.

Add to that the fact that Kite--who very much wanted to earn his way onto to the team--finished second in this year’s Masters, 10th in the British Open and fifth in the PGA Championship and it is clear that at age 47 he still has the game to compete with the best players in the world.

Still, when Kite announced that he had selected Fred Couples and Lee Janzen as his two captain’s picks, he said he had decided long ago that he would play for the United States only if he earned his way onto the team.

Another captain would not have been able to dismiss Kite so easily.

There is another, even more compelling reason why Kite should be playing on this Ryder Cup team. He has a heart as big as Texas, his home state.

This reason is certainly less tangible and less measurable. It is an argument based on courage that is demonstrated not so much in the cold numbers printed on a page in the record book, but in knowing how those numbers got there.

Forget Kite’s 19 PGA Tour victories. Look alone at the U.S. Open he won at Pebble Beach in 1992.

Playing in wind that gusted to 40 mph and knowing for more than two hours that Colin Montgomerie was safely in the clubhouse at 288, Kite played the dangerous back nine in par and won with a 285 total.

That final round was one of the best bad-weather rounds in major championship history--at least this side of the British Open.

And remember in 1993 when the U.S. team was trying to retain the Ryder Cup at the Belfry in England and was trailing 8 1/2-7 1/2 going into singles play on the final day. Kite played the next-to-the-last match against Bernhard Langer.

Kite went 1-up on No. 9 and walked to the 10th tee with a sense of purpose. He pulled his 3-wood from the bag on the hole that was playing 268 yards that day and feathered a magnificent shot over the creek and under the trees to 12 feet from the flag.

Kite won the hole with an eagle and went on to defeat Langer, 5 and 3.

The United States went on to win the Ryder Cup 15-13.

Kite’s shot was a perfect example of the kind of courage needed to win Ryder Cup matches.

Four players who qualified for the U.S. team--Tiger Woods, Justin Leonard, Jim Furyk and Scott Hoch--never have played in the Ryder Cup. Tom Lehman, Phil Mickelson, Jeff Maggert and Brad Faxon have played in only one.

Davis Love III has been in two Ryder Cups and Mark O’Meara has played in three. Couples, who has played in four Ryder Cups, added experience to the team. But Janzen has played for the United States only once and was 0-2 in his matches in 1993.

When Kite announced his two captain’s picks recently, he went down the strengths and weaknesses of everyone he considered.

“One other guy,” Kite said. “That’s the kid from Austin, Texas, Tom Kite. You know, he’s got a lot of Ryder Cup experience. He had a real good run in the major championships this year. Golly, he’s a great pick. He really is a great pick.”

Not many would disagree with that assessment.

And a different captain would have selected Tom Kite to be on the U.S. Ryder Cup team.