US aim to play to strengths

MEDINAH – US captain Davis Love III has struggled for years to come up with a way of getting a real ‘home field advantage’ over Europe at this week’s Ryder Cup and he hopes a freewheeling, birdie-laden shootout is his team’s best shot at the trophy.The battleground for the biennial golfing showdown will be the stately Medinah Country Club on the outskirts of Chicago and that choice alone suggests the United States will have an edge.Tiger Woods has won twice at Medinah, lifting the PGA Championship in 1999 and 2006, while many of his Ryder Cup team mates grew up learning the game on similar tree-lined layouts.But American-style courses and their slick greens are no longer a mystery to European visitors, who have been bagging more PGA Tour wins over the years.Spaniard Sergio Garcia has twice finished runner-up at Medinah while Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy does not need a windswept links course to find success, the world number one winning four titles on American soil this year including his second major at the PGA Championship.Love, however, believes he can get an advantage from Medinah by playing to US strengths.“I struggled for two years to kind of come up with a way, how do you get an advantage,” Love told reporters shortly after he arrived at Medinah on Monday with his European counterpart Jose Maria Olazabal.“We’re a long-hitting, freewheeling, fun-to-watch team. We have 24 of the best players in the world. They are all pretty good at adapting to conditions.Love said the Medinah set-up would also play to a pro-American crowd, giving the galleries plenty to get excited about once competition begins on Friday with the opening foursomes.“I think the fans want to see a little excitement. They want to see birdies,” said Love. “Even holes tied at birdies are more fun than six-footers tying for par.“We want to let these unbelievable athletes freewheel it a little bit and play. Medinah is such a big, long golf course, and with the weather turning bad on us, I don’t think we wanted a lot of rough.Medinah No. 3 Course is a challenging tree-lined layout designed by Tom Bendelow and opened for play in 1928.

Sports

US aim to play to strengths