2014 Ryder Cup: Previews for all 24 players on the USA and Europe team rosters

Rory McIlroy rolls into his second straight Ryder Cup as the No. 1 player in the world. In 2012, McIlroy came to Medinah off a dominating PGA Championship win and two wins in the four-event FedEx Cup. He was in top form, but things seem much different this year. McIlroy is the singular force in golf right now, rebounding from an awful 2013 season for the best summer of his career.

The way Rory overwhelmed the fields and courses of the Open and PGA made it clear that his best is better than everyone else’s and no one on either side of the Atlantic can match it. With his back-to-back major summer, his profile has also increased dramatically and he’s now the face of golf while Tiger hobbles through the end of his 30s. That disastrous 2013 interlude aside, this is an entirely different No. 1 McIlroy -- one who’s the team leader for Europe and the biggest star of the entire event.

Jim Furyk comes to the 2014 Ryder Cup off one of the best seasons of his long and decorated career. Furyk has been deadly consistent over the past couple years -- he’s in constant contention and always near the top of the leaderboard, whether it’s a regular PGA Tour stop or one of the game’s biggest events.

The only problem is he hasn’t won, failing to close numerous 54-hole leads, a four-year winless drought on Tour persisting even through this world-class play has probably deserved several victories. There have been close calls at the PGA Championship, the U.S. Open, and the WGC events, but Furyk keeps coming up just a shot or two short on Sunday. A lot of times it’s due to the other players streakiness rather than his “choking,” but the reputation and narrative now dogs him.

When Martin Kaymer made the Ryder Cup clinching putt to complete the Miracle at Medinah in 2012, it came as a surprise. The putt was not a gimme, and Kaymer was at a shaky point in his career -- he just wasn’t the same guy who rose to No. 1 in the world and had won a major championship. In terms of candidates Europe could ask to take the deciding putt, Kaymer was near the bottom of the 12-man roster.

Well that’s far from the case this year, as Kaymer rolls into Gleneagles off a dominant season in which he captured two of the five biggest events in the game, and in convincing fashion. He set records with his 8-shot U.S. Open win at Pinehurst, which came just a month after his dramatic win at The Players, the most lucrative tournament in the game. It was the kind of German machine we expected to see regularly when Kaymer rose to world No. 1. But after messing around with his swing, mostly to hit a better draw so his game would be better-suited to Augusta, he tumbled out of the world rankings and became irrelevant. He stopped contending and was totally unreliable at the biggest events. The Ryder Cup putt was one of the highlights during his stretch wandering the wilderness for his old game.

For Sergio Garcia, this Ryder Cup cycle has been a tale of two completely different years. In 2013, Sergio was more known for a variety controversies than he was for his play on the course. Due in large part to his racially insensitive remarks directed toward Tiger Woods, many (of the group that hadn’t already) turned on Sergio and his play on the course seemed to suffer amid the controversy.

Things really started to get weird for Sergio at the 2013 Players. During the third round, Garcia was paired with Woods. As Sergio played a shot, Woods reached for a club, indicating that he was going to try and play a miraculous shot from the trees. The crowd around Tiger cheered loudly as he went for the club and it apparently caused Garcia to play an extremely poor shot. After the round, Sergio was quite vocal with his displeasure for Woods.

For several years now, Graeme McDowell has been one of the most consistent golfers on the planet. Since the middle of 2010, McDowell has been a mainstay in the top 25 of the Official World Golf Rankings. He even rose to number four at one point.

There are a number of reasons those of us in the states are familiar with G-Mac, but it mainly stems from that 2010 season. McDowell captured his fifth European Tour title at the Celtic Manor Wales Open and then shortly after, he headed to the United States for the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach.

The 2014 PGA Tour season should be considered a breakthrough year for Rickie Fowler. The 25-year-old put together one of the most impressive performances we’ve ever seen in the major championships this year. He finished in the top 5 in each of this year’s major championships. It’s a feat that has only been accomplished by Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus, the top two golfers of all time. Not bad company for Fowler.

There is one problem, though. Woods and Nicklaus both won in the years they finished top 5 in each major championship. Fowler did not. So the question becomes: can Fowler translate his major championship form into a strong Ryder Cup and put an exclamation point on a great season?

US Captain Tom Watson sure hopes so. On a US team that features three rookies and several players that are not exactly at their best right now (ahem, Webb Simpson), Fowler will need to come up big for the Americans. As his major championship resume this year shows, he is one of America’s best bets. Only he and Jim Furyk could really claim they were playing well in the months leading up to the cup, and Fowler should be option No. 1 for the captain.

This is Fowler’s second Ryder Cup and he has also played in two Walker Cups. That is a lot of team golf experience for a 25-year old. His first Ryder Cup in 2010 was a learning experience. Fowler grinded to a record of 0-1-2. His last round may have been his best, halving his singles match with Edoardo Molinari.

Prior to the Ryder Cup, Fowler was a stud for the US team during the Walker Cups, the amateur version of this week’s more famous match play competition. In two Walker Cups, Fowler compiled a 7-1 record, even beating an 18 year-old Rory McIlroy. Given the up-and-down nature of match play, it’s an incredible record.

Another storyline to watch for Fowler is who he will team up with. It’s looking like Fowler may be paired with Jimmy Walker, another ace ball-striker who won three times before mid-February and never really tailed off toward the end of the season. If Fowler and Walker are put together, it will be a lot of weight in one pairing -- two of the few guys who have been in form and one of the few who has actually won this year. They’ll need to put points on the board if the underdog Americans are to have a chance.

Sure hope Bubba Watson packed his mukluks for his stay at Gleneagles. The notoriously fair-weather Ryder Cup golfer may be in for some typical Scottish weather that’s bound to be even rougher than the sprinkles at Valhalla that sent the touchy American into a loud and whiny tailspin.

That’s Bubba — the only player on either side with a handpicked babysitter (his long-suffering caddie, Ted Scott, was already on board). Conventional wisdom has it that Tom Watson made Webb Simpson a captain’s pick so that Bubba Watson had someone who could tolerate playing with him and who might be able to keep his fellow member of golf’s “Christian connection” from going all Bubba on the event, the elements, photo-bombing fans or even his host country.

Justin Rose should scare the hell out of the American side in the 2014 Ryder Cup. He might be Europe’s most consistent and most versatile weapon and should be a favorite to win every match he plays.

Ian Poulter is hailed as the European Ryder Cup hero for his work over the last decade, but fellow Englishman Rose is starting to craft his own Ryder Cup legend. He was an enormous key to the 2012 comeback, setting the early tone with an amazing Sunday singles comeback and upset of Phil Mickelson.

International competitions are nothing new for Matt Kuchar. When he tees it up at the 2014 Ryder Cup, it will be his fifth straight year of representing the United States in Ryder Cups or President Cups. He played a secondary role during many of those tournaments. One of the solid players down the roster, behind the likes of Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and others. His place on the roster this year might be different. He’s no longer the young, green guy and is instead one of the veterans. His individual results should likely playing a major role in whether the Americans are able to pull the upset.

Based on resume alone, Kuchar should be one of the strongest players on the U.S. roster. The 36-year-old is in the prime of his career, ranked No. 9 in the world and coming off another consistently strong season. He added a victory and 11 top 10s to his career resume this season and finished eighth in the FedEx Cup. Kuchar is solid tee-to-green, hits it straight, is experienced in big events and is even one of the more-likable players on the American roster. While some players may be challenging partners to play with, Kuchar should be the opposite.

While he’s not the biggest superstar on the PGA Tour, Zach Johnson has become a mainstay for the Americans in these annual team cup competitions. Johnson has been perhaps the most consistent player on the PGA Tour over the past five years. He’s got 27 professional wins in his career, 11 on the PGA Tour, and four in the last three years. Aside from those victories, Johnson is constantly on the first page of the leaderboard and in contention. We talk so much about all the young talent on the PGA Tour, and there is a lot of it -- but many of those guys will be happy to accomplish what the relatively unheralded Johnson has done in his career.

Zach is also one of the few American veterans (this is his fourth cup and third straight) who has a career winning record at the Ryder Cup. His game is generally well-suited for some of these two-man games. He’s the perfect ball-striker and always puts it in the fairway when it’s his turn on the tree. His iron play can then take advantage of having a partner that might bomb it off the tee. He’s too good and creates too many birdie chances in the match play format to keep on the bench.

Henrik Stenson returns to the Ryder Cup after a six-year hiatus. This time last year, it was Stenson, and not Rory McIlroy or Tiger Woods, who was the hottest player on the planet. He played well all year but his charge really started at the the Open, where he finished a runner-up to Phil Mickelson. That was just the start of a ridiculous closing stretch, that included another top 5 at the PGA, two FedEx Cup event wins and the overall $10 million playoff title followed by a title in the Euro Tour’s postseason equivalent, the Race to Dubai. No player had ever swept the PGA and Euro Tour playoffs, but Stenson stacked money to the sky and put himself in position become No. 1 in the world this year if he played well enough.

That remarkable finish to 2013 took a bit out of him though, and he couldn’t maintain that form for the first half of this year. He wasn’t the dominant player contending at the top of the leaderboard on a week-to-week basis. He came close at the PGA Championship, but that T3 finish was largely overshadowed by Rory’s continued ascendance and Phil’s weekend charge. His 2014 season didn’t even land him enough FedEx Cup points to make it to Atlanta and defend his FEC title as one of the top 30 in the Tour Championship. So Stenson sort of enters the Ryder Cup under the radar, as much as one can be as the No. 5 player in the world and the second ranked qualifier in points (behind only Rory) on both Euro qualifying lists

Jamie Donaldson is a relatively unknown player in the United States, but he’s emerged as one of the best European golfers in the world. The Welshman has competed and contended at some of the game’s biggest events for a couple years now, and he had a Ryder Cup spot reserved pretty early in the 2014 season.

Donaldson has won on the Euro Tour in each of the past three years, settling nicely in the top 50 and becoming a regular at the majors and the WGC events. His best showing in the States was at the WGC tournament at Doral, where he nearly chased down Patrick Reed during a big Sunday charge. He settled for a T2 there and huge six-figure check, and that result in a loaded field went a long way toward securing his spot on the European team for Gleneagles.

Let’s see if we can break down the wild year that Patrick Reed has had. First, Reed came relatively out of nowhere last August and won the Wyndham Championship. I say “out of nowhere” because the first half of 2013 looked like this for Reed. Before the end of May, he had missed the cut in more than half of the tournaments he entered, including a terrible stretch of four straight in March and April.

But as summer rolled around, Reed found something in his game. The summer of 2013 looked much better and Reed got the aforementioned Wyndham victory and even qualified for the FedEx Cup Playoffs.

Ian Poulter, to no one’s surprise, is brimming with self-assurance and ready to resume his role as the destroyer of American hopes when the 2014 Ryder Cup tees off on Friday at Gleneagles.

One of European captain Paul McGinley’s wild-card picks for this year’s squad, Poulter is one of those rare breed of players Johnny Miller singled out as journeymen of sorts when it comes to regular-season play but absolute geniuses of the golf course once national pride is on the line.

Jimmy Walker knew he would be here about eight months ago. Walker spent almost the entire year on top of the FedEx Cup standings and the Ryder Cup standings after winning three PGA Tour events before mid-February. He was the hottest golfer in the world for the first few months of the season, and a lock to contend on a week-to-week basis.

Walker is 35-years old and had bounced back and forth between tours before finally getting his footing on the most competitive Tour in the world. So he’s bit of a late bloomer and older for a rookie, but he’s been automatic all year and could be the key for Tom Watson’s team. There was a fear that Walker would seal his spot before spring ever arrived and then completely fall off in the weeks and months that mattered preceding the Ryder Cup.

Members of the U.S. Ryder Cup team aren’t the only golfers seeking deliverance this week at Gleneagles. Lee Westwood, who used his time on the European squad 12 years ago to revive a foundering career, hopes this year’s competition will have a similar impact on him.

“The Ryder Cup gave my career a kick-start in 2002 and this could be the same,” Westwood, one of Paul McGinley’s three captains picks, told James Corrigan last week. “Any time you play well under pressure – and next week will be the most intense pressure you will ever experience – it makes a difference.”

For most of the year, Hunter Mahan was a longshot to make the American Ryder Cup team. He languished near the middle of the standings, somewhere around 25th to 30th in points and never really did much to make you think he’d be a part of 12-man envoy to Scotland.

But things changed quickly in August, and Mahan emerged as a likely captain’s pick, one of the better options out of many bad and mediocre ones for Tom Watson. Mahan is a veteran of these match play events, but he missed out on the 2012 roster at Medinah when his season went south over the second half of the summer. Mahan faded at the wrong time, and a mainstay on these teams was one of the last guys out. This year was the opposite, as he came from behind and finished with a T15 at the Bridgestone Invitational, a T7 at the PGA Championship, and a win at The Barclays, the FedEx Cup playoffs opener. Those three solid results at three of the bigger tournaments were enough to lock up a captain’s selection by Labor Day.

The Ryder Cup returns to Scotland, also known as the “home of golf,” for the first time since the 1973 contest at Muirfield. And good thing Stephen Gallacher made a late push for a captain’s pick or else no native Scot would be on the team. Gallacher will be the home favorite at Gleneagles, a rookie who made it a season-long goal to make the team so he could play in front of the Scottish fans.

Gallacher began that push for a Ryder Cup spot playing alongside Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods at the Dubai Desert Classic. He was the unknown third-wheel tagging alongside the two biggest stars in the game for the first two rounds in Dubai. But by Sunday evening, it was Gallacher, and not Woods or Rory, raising the trophy at the Euro Tour’s flagship event of their Middle East collection of tournaments.

Jordan Spieth burst onto the PGA Tour scene last year when he holed out a bunker shot to win the John Deere Classic. This year, he nearly won the Masters at 20-years old. For the past 15 months or so, it seemed inevitable that Spieth would become a superstar and possibly win multiple times this year.

But things haven’t exactly gone to plan for Spieth. While he definitely remains a candidate to be a face of USA golf for the next decade or more, it’s possible we were a bit premature in crowning Spieth the “next big thing.” Since his second place finish at the Masters, it’s been an underwhelming march at times for Spieth. He has a few top ten finishes (the Players, John Deere, and BMW Championship), but also has struggled and not really contending since TPC Sawgrass. He failed to gain any major championship momentum after his Masters performance, finishing 17th at the U.S .Open, 36th at the British, and missing the cut at the PGA Championship.

The European team has a history of producing these relatively unknown and unheralded players who can catch the American side off-guard. In 2012 at Medinah, it was Nicolas Colsaerts, a Belgian bomber who opened the matches with an absurd birdie streak to carry veteran Lee Westwood to a win over the superstar pairing of Tiger Woods and Steve Stricker. This year, the one Euro who has a chance of crushing American dreams over multiple sessions this year is rookie Victor Dubuisson.

The Frenchman shouldn’t catch any American players off-guard, however, as he’s a well-known commodity at this point even if the USA audience might know little about him. Dubuisson was perhaps the hottest player in the world at end of 2013 and the start of 2014, winning November’s Turkish Airlines Open over a field that included Woods, finishing third the next week in Dubai, and then rolling to a top five at the Volvo Golf Champions. His sustained success on the Euro Tour made him a likely Ryder Cup candidate, but he didn’t truly lock it up until the WGC-Match Play event in February.

Were it not for the heroics of his European counterpart, Ian Poulter, two years ago at Medinah, Keegan Bradley would no doubt have been named the most valuable player of the 2012 Ryder Cup matches.

As things turned out, of course, Poulter went into his other-worldly Ryder Cup zone and spurred his mates onto a final-day upset of the home team, making Bradley’s energetic and inspiring 3-1-0 Cup debut little more than a footnote to history. But don’t tell that to the 2011 PGA champion, who, to hear him tell it, has thought about little else than avenging his team’s stunning loss this time around at Gleneagles.

Thomas Bjorn wasn’t supposed to be here. The 43-year-old Dane is somewhat of a father figure, ambassador, and lead advisory voice in European golf. He hasn’t played in the Ryder Cup since 2002, and was elevated to vice captain status at both the 2010 and 2012 Ryder Cups. He was presumably going to play the same role again this year as a veteran and decorated Euro Tour loyalist. And then he went out and lit it up on both sides of the pond, ensuring that he would qualify on points pretty early in the process this summer.

Despite his long and successful career on the Euro Tour, Bjorn has just two Ryder Cup appearances -- the 1997 win at Valderrama and the 2002 win at The Belfry. So he’s never played in one on American soil, and now he’s back again in Scotland serving as a team leader and a “playing captain” of sorts. In his 1997 debut in Spain, Bjorn played in just one of the four two-man sessions. I would expect he might get limited action through the first two days again this year -- there’s just so much talent on the Euro side and four guys are going to have to sit.

Had the captain’s pick selection process occurred a couple weeks later, it’s very likely that Webb Simpson would not be on the American Ryder Cup team. Simspon was, by all accounts, the 12th and final member to sneak onto the roster. He was the third captain’s selection by Tom Watson back on September 2, when the debate was primarily between he and Chris Kirk, who had just won the Deutsche Bank Championship in Boston.

In the intervening weeks, of course, Billy Horschel has emerged as the hottest player on the planet, finishing second in Boston and then winning the final two FedEx Cup events to take home the grand prize $10 million. If the captain’s picks were delayed until the end of the postseason, he would certainly have made the team and Simpson would have likely been the one staying home.