US Team / Ralph Ellis / 31 July 2008 /

Dinner resentment suggests that, despite home advantage, USA might be too short for the Ryder Cup, says Ralph Ellis.

First it was Cristiano Ronaldo who was a slave on £120,000 a week - at least according to FIFA boss Sepp Blatter. We all laughed. But what we maybe didn't realise was that Blatter was probably comparing him to Phil Mickelson, who at the last count had collected just under 50 million dollars in career prize money.

Now it turns out that Mickelson and the other top American golfers are also slaves - at least according to Hunter Mahan who is claiming that there is a mood again for them to boycott the Ryder Cup. The modern sporting definition of slave, it seems, is actually being required to complete the work you are paid handsomely to do!

The Daily Mail's Derek Lawrenson, the only tabloid golf writer who's gone to Akron for the Bridgestone Invitational tournament this week, reveals this morning the row that's brewing over the American team to play at Valhalla. Mahan, currently 11th on the money list so not necessarily likely to get into the line-up anyway, has given an interview to an American golf magazine. "At some point the players might say: 'We're not doing this any more because this is ridiculous'," he says. "You've got dinners every night. Huge, massive dinners. As players, that's the last thing we want. You're just a slave for the week."

Lawrenson has got out to find Mahan on the practice ground, and to his credit he's not claimed he was misquoted, although he has tried to backpedal, telling the Mail's golf writer: "Oh man, I wish I could have that word slavery back. In fact I wish I could clean up a lot of that article." But significantly what he did tell the Mail was that the Americans aren't as committed to the Ryder Cup as the European team who take the event far more seriously.

It all has echos of nine years ago when Mark O'Meara, Tiger Woods and David Duval led a delegation complaining about being made to play for nothing, which ended with the organisers agreeing to donate 200,000 dollars to each participant to go to charity. But Lawrenson is warning that the central grievance remains with the American players that they have to show up to huge money raising dinners each night, with the profits going to the PGA of America. And unlike in Europe where the Ryder Cup is run by the European Tour so the players get a direct link to the cash generated, in the States the US Tour is a completely separate organisation.

What does all this mean to us? Well for a start don't back Hunter Mahan at [11.0] in the to finish in the top five at the Bridgestone Invitational because he's clearly not too fussed about earning the extra prize money to break into the team for Valhalla! Kenny Perry, who has made his enthusiasm to play in the Ryder Cup clear, is a much better bet at [5.3].

And in the longer term it suggests again that despite home advantage the Americans shouldn't be as short as [2.14] favourites to win the Cup and are well worth laying. Their lack of team spirit has shown through in so many recent years and it doesn't look as if this time will be any different.

Five things you might not know about Hunter Mahan

1. Born in Orange, California, in 1982 he was a top amateur golfer and was 1999 US Junior Open champion.

2. He's only won one event on the PGA Tour since he turned pro in 2003

3. He's only once got in the top ten of a major, finishing joint sixth in The Open at Carnoustie last year

4. He didn't make the cut at Royal Birkdale this year - or at Augusta in the Masters

5. He doesn't seem to know what he's talking about!!!

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