On rookie Kim: What was that question?
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The scene in “Field of Dreams” shows Shoeless Joe Jackson (Ray Liotta) coming up to a baby-faced Moonlight Graham and asking him, did you come here to play baseball or what? And the awestruck kid says yeah, he wants to play, and Shoeless Joe casually tosses him a ball, and tells him to go warm up. And as the kids hustles away, breathless, Shoeless Joe throws a sideways glance to the people who can see him and says indulgently, “Rookies.”There didn't appear to be any ghosts squiring Anthony Kim as he entered the Ryder Cup cauldron Friday. And he jumped in with both feet. It seemed to answer one of the pressing questions of the day. Kim was not only a rookie in the Ryder Cup, he's the baby of the team at 23 and only in his second full season on the PGA Tour. (He's won twice this year.) The Ryder Cup is supposed to leave rookies whimpering, especially really rookie rookies.
They never laid a glove on him.
“I was definitely nervous,” Kim said. “But when you have Phil Mickelson on your side, you can relay on him to hit some quality shots. And it was a great day.”
Great day for Mickelson, too. For a golfer of his stature, his Ryder Cup record reads like a Wall Street printout - 9 wins, 12 losses, 4 ties in six previous visits. His opening day record is bankrupt. More or less lousy.
“I love playing with this guy,” Mickelson said.
Put that one in stone.
Generally, rookies are eased into the Ryder Cup. U.S. captain Paul Azinger not only played Kim Friday, he batted him and Mickelson lead-off in the morning alternate shot.
“Vulnerable?” Azinger had said, at the suggestion Kim might be. “Not really. The guy made the clinching putt at the Walker Cup. He's got a little experience, not to compare the Ryder Cup to the Walker Cup. I'm not worried about him. I have a lot of confidence in Anthony Kim. I like my first pairing.”
Indeed. They sparked the Americans' best start since 1979, by the same score, 5-1/2 - 2 -1/2, the year the Great Britain-Ireland team became the European team, the beginning of the end of the American fall lark.
Kim, the one-time rebel - he'd split from his dad for a while, then split with some heat from Oklahoma after two outstanding seasons -- paid off Zinger's faith richly. First, there was a formidable introduction -- Padraig Harrington, winner of both the British Open and the PGA Championship, led off for the Euros. Then Mickelson followed and put his tee shot into the fairway, a rare enough accomplishment, at that. Then Kim, for his very first Ryder Cup shot, calmly and professionally put Mickelson's tee ball smack on the green.
What nerves?
Mick and Kim bordered on the spectacular. They had sunk to 3-down through the 12th and were looking dead in the morning alternate shot, but scrambled back, won the next three holes, and ran out the round for a half. Zinger sent them out in better ball in the afternoon, and they erased Harrington and Graeme McDowell, 2-up.
Kim had debuted with 1-1/2 points for the day.
But not without incident, however. Kim seemed nerveless, except for that dangerous knee-jerk at the 18th in the morning. Mickelson had hit into a deep greenside bunker. It would take only a routine shot to get it up and onto the green. But he barely got it up out of the sand, and then only a few feet, to the heavy grass on the steep bank. Mickelson faced a nasty chip, his left foot way down, body trying not to tilt. He did well to get it to within 5 feet of the pin.
Had Kim tried to be too delicate on that bunker shot, trying to get close and set up Mickelson for a birdie? Or had he choked? History may one day tell us, if he decides to speak. For the present, though, history will say merely - but grandly -- that Kim coolly dropped the clutch 5-footer for a par to halve the match.
The afternoon better-ball was another escape act. Mick and Kim lost the first three holes, and scrambled back and were 1-down through the 12th, getting a half on Mikckelson's birdie there. Then Mickelson also birdied the 13th to square the match, and Kim birdied the 14th.
Someone complimented Kim on a great shot to complete a run of birdies for them.
“I wasn't completing a run for us,” Kim said. “I was completing a run for Phil, and fortunately I kicked one in. He held me up when I wasn't playing so well.”
Match play is rarely that simple. McDowell counter-punched with a birdie to square the match again at the 15th, and it left Mickelson - himself playing like an inspired rookie -- to complete the heroics. He birdied the last two holes for the 2-up win.
You look like the pair to beat, someone noticed.
“I think we are going to be pretty tough to beat,” Kim said.
Said Mickelson: “He has a lot of talent, a lot of game. It was fun for me to get it, that youthful exuberance today. It's infectious.”
Euro captain Nick Faldo can make his plans. He's can count on getting two more doses of Mick and Kim in both team matches Saturday. And probably in Ryder Cups of the future.
There's a movie scene on this point, in “Casablanca.”
“Louie,” Bogie tells Claude Rains, the French cop, “this looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
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