The Ryder Cup captains’ picks weren’t just the right and obvious choices.
They were potentially magical choices.
There’s some enchantment in both storylines with this week’s announcements of American Davis Love III and Spaniard Jose Maria Olazabal as the picks.
Watch out if a rainbow breaks out over Medinah in Chicago during the final round of the Ryder Cup next year. Davis Love III, of course, won the PGA Championship at Winged Foot in 1997 with a rainbow covering the final hole as he putted out. It’s one of the special closing moments in PGA Championship history with so many folks making a cosmic connection to Love’s late father’s approval. Davis Love Jr. was a longtime PGA member and teacher who died in a plane crash in ’88 at 53.
Olazabal is fighting back from the debilitating effects of rheumatoid arthritis, and he brings a strong connection to fellow Spaniard Seve Ballesteros, who’s battling brain cancer. Any Ryder Cup link to Ballesteros ought to make American fans nervous. Ballesteros was a Ryder Cup force who still inspires European players. Olazabal and Ballesteros, known as the Spanish Armada, teamed to win more matches than any partnership in the history of the Ryder Cup. They were 11-2-2.
