Selection of Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson to Ryder Cup team is not so elementary to Tom Watson

US Ryder Cup captain Tom Watson faces the likely possibility that slumping superstars Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson both will need wild-card picks to make the team, a consideration they have not earned of late.

Tom Watson says everyone expects him to select Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson to the US Ryder Cup team if they are not automatic qualifiers. Tom Pennington / Getty Images

Being named a Ryder Cup captain is considered one of the highest honours in a player's career, a tip of the cap to years of accomplishment, popularity and leadership.

However, the position includes a few potential pitfalls.

Captains do not draw a salary, are subject to blistering amounts of second-guessing and ridicule, and they must mould 12 individualistic egos into a cohesive unit.

Then there is the matter of wild-card picks, where a captain’s discretion can become a divisive issue, weeks before the matches are contested.

Consider the unenviable position of US captain Tom Watson, a legendary figure who faces the increasingly likely possibility that slumping superstars Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson both will need wild-card picks to make the team, consideration they have not earned of late.

With the US team’s nine automatic berths to be finalised after the final round of the PGA Championship on August 10, Watson could face the most difficult and controversial captaincy call in years.

After finishing 69th at the British Open last week, his worst 72-hole finish in a major, Woods nonetheless said he merits a wild-card pick. As for his own chances in that regard, Mickelson echoed the sentiment. But neither has posted a top-10 finish on the PGA Tour in 2014 and Woods has barely played.

Yet the question is not simply whether either has earned a pick. It is a matter of what else is left in the US player portfolio.

While Woods and Mickelson (11th) and (70th) do not rank among the nine automatic selections, Watson’s other options largely run the gamut between inexperienced and unknown.

Of the players ranked between Nos 10-23 on the US points list, other than Mickelson, only Webb Simpson and Keegan Bradley have played in the Ryder Cup – once apiece.

Neither has won this season.

While Mickelson will almost certainly get one of Watson’s three captain’s picks, Woods remains a lightning rod of controversy.

Watson is not the former world No 1’s biggest cheerleader, having several times criticised him for poor behaviour.

“Everybody is thinking that I’m going to pick them automatically,” Watson said of the US duo last weekend, insisting the assumption was incorrect.

Perhaps everybody has a good point, for once. There are three events remaining in which to earn US Ryder Cup points, with Woods and Mickelson both playing consecutive weeks at the Bridgestone Invitational and PGA Championship.

The Ryder Cup, to be played at Gleneagles, in Scotland, begins on September 26.

The intrigue for the American team has already begun.

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