Tiger Woods lobbies Davis Love in Korea to be Ryder Cup vice captain

Tiger Woods, according to conventional wisdom, is too much of a lone wolf to be a team player. The injured superstar who witnessed from his couch Team USA’s one-point squeaker over the Internationals at the Presidents Cup turned that assumption upside down when from afar he offered his services as assistant captain at next year’s Ryder Cup.

Woods phoned 2016 Ryder Cup skipper Davis Love III in Korea last week to say he wanted to help the squad in whatever capacity possible. Tiger, whose health and game will need miraculous recoveries to make the team as a player, reached out on Friday to pal and PC assistant captain Fred Couples.

Freddie, according to Golf Digest, passed the phone to Love, also one of Jay Haas’ vice captains.

“He [Woods] was watching at home and he just had to call,” Love told Dave Shedloski. “He was talking about all the things he thought we needed to do, and he had a lot of ideas. We’re already doing a lot of planning for next year, and it’s great. It’s part of the whole process that started after Gleneagles. Everybody is thinking about it, which is great.”

The formerly top-ranked player in the world has dropped to No. 311 after two lost seasons and a pair of back surgeries. In addition to no wins since 2013, Woods recorded just one top-10 finish, four missed cuts and a withdrawal in 11 starts this year.

The vague timetable for his return to competition is sometime “early in 2016,” after Woods turns 40 in December. Even the most starry-eyed Tiger fan would have trouble imagining the 14-time major champion rebounding enough to qualify for the Ryder Cup.

As a member of the Ryder Cup task force established after the Americans’ woeful loss last year at Gleneagles, Woods has expressed interest in helping Love from the sidelines if he can’t be on the field.

Love has tapped only Tom Lehman thus far to be an assistant. Woods is one of several names in the mix to help from the bench but Love is “not waiting around” to see if Tiger can make the team.

“We’ve already been doing a lot of planning,” said Love, who noted last month he envisioned next year’s U.S. Ryder Cup team without Woods Woods and Phil Mickelson. “And Tiger is just as interested as the rest of us to get going.”