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P R E V I O U S N E W S WEATHER predictions for Sunday are better than what they have been for the last two days. PROBLEMS, GREMLINS, THUNDERS, SERVERS, ETC... ...have made this Saturday 27th one of the worse days of our lives. Being an "unofficial" site has its inconveniences. Suddenly our main server in the US stopped functioning in the morning, that was after a 2 hour drive to Valderrama in the middle of the most extraordinary thunder and lightning seen in the area for sometime. To top it all, our database system that generates the pages collapsed, then... Unfortunately, we have not been up-to-date with todays play but now everything should be back to normal !!. Please accept our apologies but we do our best and have been sleeping only a few hours a night since last week. Thanks again. CUP OPENING delayed by storms. Matches have started at 10:40. See update here. MORNING FOURBALLS parings are now available here. We now have an image gallery here. US and EUROPEAN number ones Tiger Woods and Colin Montgomerie will be teeing up against each other for the first day's play of the 1997 Ryder Cup at Valderrama. As preparations began for the official opening by the Spanish monarch, King Juan Carlos, US captain Tom Kite announced he would stay with the same pairings as for the final practice session, but his European counterpart, Severiano Ballesteros, made two surprise decisions. First, he left former US Masters champion and European number one Ian Woosnam out of the Friday morning fourballs and, second, paired Montgomerie with fellow Tour veteran Bernhard Langer, in the final grouping against Woods and Mark O'Meara. The day's play will open with Davis Love III and Phil Mickelson against Jose Maria Olazabal and Costantino Rocca. They will be followed out on the course by Fred Couples and Brad Faxon (winners of the Shark Shootout and other events together in the US) against Nick Faldo and Ryder Cup rookie Lee Westwood. The two Marbella-based Swedes, Jesper Parnevik and Per-Ulrik Johansson, will then tee up against Tom Lehman and Jim Furyk. Apart from the absence of Woosnam (who will sit out the first morning's play with Cup rookies Darren Clarke, Ignacio Garrido and Thomas Bjorn), the other major surprise was the exclusion from the US team of reigning British Open champion Justin Leonard. Joining him on the sidelines, at least for the morning, will be Lee Janzen, Scott Hoch and Jeff Maggert. Kite said he had decided on his opening pairings two days before, while Ballesteros said he had risen early this morning (Thursday) to make his decision. The foursomes pairings for the afternoon play (starting at 2.15 pm at 15-minute intervals) will be announced when the four fourballs have concluded. MEANWHILE, the unlucky 13th member of the team, Miguel Angel Martin, made peace with European officials (who had kicked him out of the team for declining to undergo a fitness test before recovering fully from injury) but immediately returned home to watch the matches on TV. Martin, who earned the 10th and final automatic place in the team before being excluded under controversial circumstances, will be accorded full privileges as an official Ryder Cup player (Tour exemptions, Grand Slam tournament eligibility, sponsors' bonuses, etc.). Nevertheless, still clearly bitter, he decided not to stay at Valderrama after posing with the other 12 players and assistant captain Miguel Angel Jimenez for the official team photo. WE ARE already set up at Valderrama press room and publishing. You can have a look at our our view.  EUROPEAN
CAPTAIN Severiano Ballesteros said he was tremendously confident and had everything
under control as the Ryder Cup players hit their first practice strokes at Valderrama.
While Ballesteros spoke at the first official press conference of the tournament,
Nick Faldo, veteran of the European team, and Fred Couples, the only American to
have played a competitive round at Valderrama, practised side by side on the driving
range. The other European players were driven down in convoy from Málaga airport
early in the afternoon, while the American captain Tom Kite and the rest of his team
were scheduled to fly in on Concorde later in the afternoon. Ballesteros said of
his team that it had the right blend of experience and young energy (five players
are making their Cup debut), while he rated the US team as one of the best of recent
editions. He admitted he was disappointed not to be playing for the first time since
1981 but said it was great honour to be the first Spanish captain and even more special
for it to be in Spain for the first time. TEAM ARRIVALS. Members of the United States Ryder Cup team will fly into Málaga Airport on Concorde on Monday afternoon. Travelling with the captain, Tom Kite, they are due to arrive at 7.30 pm at the the North Terminal (next to the old national terminal). Some members of the European team are scheduled to arrive on an earlier flight, at 2.35 pm, accompanied by the actual Ryder Cup trophy though without their captain, Severiano Ballesteros, who will already be at Valderrama for his first press conference. THE SUBJECT has been kept on the back-burner until now, but the first player rumblings about the vast Ryder Cup profits are starting to come to the boil. Following Bernhard Langer�s recent demand that the profits be channelled to continental European PGAs as well as the British PGA, other players competing this week in Paris in the Lancome Trophy have suggested the time might be nearing when Cup participants are paid - albeit these fees being passed on to their chosen charities. AUTHORITIES have admitted that nine out of every 10 visitors to the Ryder Cup will have to travel to Valderrama via the 23 kilometres of single-carriageway between Estepona and Guadiaro. They maintain, however, that creating a reversible third lane will alleviate bottlenecks. Our personal opinion (after passing by a couple of days ago) is that most visitors should allocate between two and two and a half hours to get there every morning. -SUPPORT SEVE- Ryder Cup officials have called for more Spanish press support for European captain Severiano Ballesteros. PGA European Tour executive director Ken Schofield told a press conference in Madrid that Ballesteros had worked without rest since being named captain (last year - the first non Briton), being well aware of the task ahead of him at Valderrama. Schofield said many believed the US team was the strongest since 1981, though they also were confident Ballesteros could rise to the challenge. He praised Seve�s efforts on behalf of Spanish golf and said he hoped people would show appreciation for his contribution. PLAYERS profiles are now completed BALLESTEROS announced his wild-card picks MIGUEL ANGEL MARTIN still wants to play in the Ryder Cup 97. Classified 10th in the rankings, he has been replaced by Jose Maria Olazabal, and he has threatened to take legal action to be reinstated in the team. |
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