Woods theories seem amiss

Justin Leonard, Hunter Mahan, Anthony Kim, and Phil Mickelson are all at the Ryder Cup, but an absent American is a hot topic. (timothy a. clary/AFP/Getty Images)

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - With a thick carpet of dew at their feet and a thin layer of sunlight above, the day would begin not with swings but smiles.

Golf?

Well, sure, eventually it will be about the golf. But yesterday's official start to the 37th Ryder Cup was all about team photographs. For posterity, maybe. Or perhaps to help quench the PGA of America's thirst to turn this biennial competition into something bigger than sport itself.

Who knows the motivation, but as dozens of officials in their team garb directed dozens of photographers to their proper places, it was left for 12 members of the US team to stand in a morning chill, casting shadows that stretched well onto the ninth green at Valhalla Golf Club.

Yet the shadow that stretched the furthest belonged to a man who wasn't even in attendance. It belonged to Tiger Woods, whose absence from the golf world in general and the Ryder Cup specifically has been a constant storyline since he decided in the days after his US Open win in June to have surgery to repair his left knee. In the days and weeks since then, it has been suggested on numerous occasions that the PGA Tour lacks a certain panache without Woods. That is hard to argue. But what of this contention that Woods's position on the sideline somehow makes the American team better for this Ryder Cup business?

"It will be a loss not to have the best player in the world on your team," said Jim Furyk, willing to take exception to those who embrace the notion that it's a case of addition by subtraction.

Furyk's debut in the Ryder Cup, in 1997, coincided with Woods's, and they've been integral parts of US teams on five occasions. But with the Americans 1-4 in that time, it's been a popular argument that Woods's great individual talents have never translated well into the team concept. Various theories have been bandied about:

That when Woods loses a match, it deflates team members, because they expect him to win.

That playing beside Woods is difficult, because he's such a massive talent you do not want to let him down and you press even more to live up to his expectations.

That Woods is so focused on winning major championships and individual tournaments that he's never embraced this team stuff.

But his teammates and colleagues don't subscribe to any of these.

Furyk said it was unfathomable to think this way. He didn't see how you could be a better team by subtracting the best player in the game. Justin Leonard agreed, saying, "If Tiger Woods was here, you certainly wouldn't say we'd be better off without him. I think that some guy is trying to paint a little bit of a silver lining. Any team is not going to be as strong when they don't have the best player in the world. But the fact is, we don't."

No, they don't, but if you're thinking it's no big deal, that Woods hasn't played that well in the Ryder Cup anyway . . . well, it's an assessment that needs to be adjusted. While it goes without saying that Woods has already doubled Arnold Palmer in major championship success (14 wins to 7) and he'll most likely surpass Jack Nicklaus's 18, never will he be able to match what those icons did in the Ryder Cup - each of them going undefeated on six teams.

True, all of that, but a little perspective. Woods has played in a different Ryder Cup era (Europeans provide the opposition, not just players from Great Britain and Ireland), and it would be hard to argue that he hasn't met with much tougher competition than his celebrated predecessors.

There is also this: While the Americans have been beaten four of the five times Woods has been a team member and outscored, 80 1/2-59 1/2, Woods has piled up the most points of any US player in that time. Against a backdrop of humiliating losses (18 1/2-9 1/2 each of the last two editions), Woods's overall record of 10-13-2 - which includes being undefeated in his last four singles matches - doesn't look all that bad.

Crunch the numbers and you'll discover that he's gathered 11 of a possible 25 points in that time, or 44 percent. Compare that with Phil Mickelson (8 of a possible 22, 36 percent) or Furyk (7 1/2 of a possible 20, 37 percent), both of whom have also been on each of the last five teams.

It supports a premise that Furyk keeps falling back upon: "Guys look up to him. He's our best player and he's a guy that I played with in the past."

In fact, Furyk was an inexplicable 0-5-1 in four-ball matches in the Ryder Cup before he joined with Woods in 2006. They led off the competition in Ireland with a victory, though it quickly went all downhill from there - for the US, but not necessarily for Woods. Instead, the world's best player and America's unquestioned leader went 3-2-0 to total 3 points, the most on the team, so again, players wonder what is good about not having that type of leadership.

"You take Tom Brady away and you are left with a backup quarterback," said Curtis Strange, five times a Ryder Cup player and the captain of the 2002 team that lost at The Belfry in England. "But our backup is a whole lot better than the Patriots' backup. Why? Because our [backup] is a world-class player, a proven winner, and he made the team with his current play.

"No, they are not a better team, but I don't believe they are much less a team without Tiger."

Having known for nearly three months that Woods would not be a teammate, the American players have long since come to grips with the landscape. None of them have asked out.

"I like our team," said Leonard. "I would certainly love for Tiger to be here, but he's not. So we're going to go out and give it our best and maybe rally around the fact that he's not here."

Jim McCabe can be reached at jmccabe@globe.com.