ESPN Golf Blog

Posted by Jason Sobel

When Corey Pavin became the United States Ryder Cup captain Thursday, he said all the right things about how this is a dream come true. The former major champion spoke of the excitement of the matches and the pressure it brings like no other event in the world; he declared it an opportunity to once again be involved in the tournament that means so much to him.

Pavin won't just be saying those things, however. He'll really mean 'em.

Before analyzing Pavin's appointment to the position, let me recall a quick anecdote from this year's PGA Championship. On the eve of the opening round, I was in full stalker mode, wandering the practice facilities at Oakland Hills in search of players who could speak to me for a column I was writing on the importance of the year's fourth major in comparison with the Masters, U.S. Open and British Open. I found Pavin, a presumed expert on said topic considering his 18 previous PGA appearances, and we chatted on a small staircase adjacent to the Oakland Hills clubhouse that leads out to the putting green.

"Where does this tournament rank among the four majors?" I asked him.

Without hesitation, he offered up sort of a company line for a PGA Tour veteran.

"There are four majors, and every one is just as good as the other." Expecting him to wax poetically about "Glory's Last Shot," instead Pavin veered in another direction, adding, "But for me, they all come after the Ryder Cup."

It is likely this attitude, this reverence for the biennial match and determination to become part of it once again compelled the PGA of America to choose Pavin as its team leader for 2010, when the event will take place in Wales for the first time. As a player, he was always a gritty -- and successful -- competitor, serving on the roster in 1991, '93 and '95, helping win the Cup on two of those occasions while compiling an 8-5-0 overall record without a losing mark in any format.

Make no mistake, though. There might have been one other very important reason Pavin got the gig: He was one of the only true candidates.

Like Goldilocks taste-testing the porridge, the PGA of America no doubt found something a little unsettling about each of its other options. Mark O'Meara is too old (at 51, he's already a regular member of the Champions Tour; the PGA prefers its captains to still be competing on same circuit as its potential team members.) Davis Love III is too young (winner of the year's final event, the 44-year-old has stated it's his goal to return to the team as a player in two years). Fred Couples is too busy (he will captain the U.S. Presidents Cup squad in 2009).

Of course, that process of elimination didn't rule out the possibility of a second consecutive skipper role for Paul Azinger, who managed the team to its first victory in nine years in September. While Azinger didn't have past history on his side -- no man has captained back-to-back U.S. teams since Ben Hogan in 1947-49 -- he did have, well, recent history on his side, having taken a dozen individual players and formed them into one cohesive unit via his team-building system at Valhalla.

Though many have called for the PGA to return to the well by tapping Azinger once again -- including, it should be noted, his players, who cried "Zinger in '10! Zinger in '10!" in unison during the winning team's press conference that Sunday evening -- bringing in a fresh face is more the PGA way. Azinger's system, on the other hand, should remain uniformly intact.

If Pavin -- who didn't have a role on the 2008 team but did serve as an assistant to Tom Lehman two years ago -- learned anything while watching the matches, it's that for perhaps the first time in 37 all-time Ryder Cups, the captain really made a decisive impact on the overall outcome of the competition. Whether he wants to implement such a system at Celtic Manor will be his call to make -- with a nudge from the PGA folks, of course. On the surface, though, it not only seems like the smart way to strategically attack the next Ryder Cup; after such success this year, it might be the only way.

Pavin owns a variety of specific jobs in his new role as captain, but he has only one ultimate goal: Win the thing. It's hardly a foreign concept, as Pavin has been a winner throughout his career; he triumphed at the 1995 U.S. Open and owns 15 total PGA Tour victories, including his most recent at the U.S. Bank Championship two years ago.

If he wants to win one more time, though -- the one win that undoubtedly outshines all others in his estimation -- he might have to rely on the handiwork of a man he just beat out for the position. It should be a small sacrifice to claim that final objective.

Jason Sobel is a golf writer for ESPN.com. He can be reached at Jason.Sobel@espn3.com.