9/26/2012

Feherty Declares for Team USA

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David Feherty's loyalties are divided no more.

Golf's funny man said during the taping of his "Feherty Live" special that he will be rooting for the Americans at this week's Ryder Cup. That's big news, considering the analyst is from Northern Ireland, played for Europe at the 1991 Ryder Cup and still counts former European captain Sam Torrance as one of his closest friends.

But Feherty has lived in the Dallas area for the better part of the last 20 years and became a U.S. citizen in 2010. 

He's an ardent supporter of U.S. troops and has a foundation -- Troops First -- that raises money for wounded soldiers.

These days Feherty holds place on the CBS team golf commentary team alongside Sir Nick Faldo, Jim Nantz, Peter Osterhuis and Ian Baker Finch. The Augusta National Golf Club has consistently chosen CBS as its U.S. broadcast partner, it has done so on successive one-year contracts. 

Feherty was born in Bangor, Northern Ireland and spent most of his playing career in Europe, where he won five times and finished in the top ten of the European Tour's Order of Merit twice, coming tenth in 1989 and eighth in 1990. 

He spent 1994 and 1995 playing mainly on the PGA Tour, and the best result on the tour was a second place finish at the 1994 New England Classic. His combined career prize money exceeded $3 million. 

Feherty represented Ireland in international competition including captaining the victorious 1990 Alfred Dunhill Cup team. Feherty played for Europe on the 1991 Ryder Cup team.

In 1997, Feherty retired from both the European and PGA Tour and joined CBS Sports as an on-course reporter and golf analyst. 

Feherty is also a contributor to Golf Magazine and has his own column in the back of the magazine called Sidespin. He has also published a number of books A Nasty Bit of Rough, Somewhere in Ireland a Village Is Missing an Idiot, An Idiot for All Seasons, and David Feherty's Totally Subjective History of the Ryder Cup.

Feherty lives with his wife, Anita and five children in Dallas, Texas.

He appears in advertisements for the Cobra golf company, showing off his trampolining and cheer leading skills in the advert.

In 2008, Feherty was hit by a truck, while cycling suffering three broken ribs, which punctured his lung and was hospitalised for a few days with a tube in his chest. He resumed his broadcast duties at the 2008 Masters.

Never far from controversy, Feherty was one of five writers to comment on George W. Bush's move to Dallas using the article to express his support of Bush and to speak on politics. At the time it caused CBS to distance themselves from Feherty's comments.

He now has  regular interview feature on the Golf Channel - aptly named "Feherty".

European Tour wins 
1986 Italian Open
1989 BMW International Open
1991 Credit Lyonnais Cannes Open
1992 Iberia Madrid Open

Irish wins 
1980 Irish National PGA Championship
1982 Irish National PGA Championship

Other wins
1984 ICL International (South Africa)
1988 South African PGA Championship
1992 Bell's Cup (South Africa)

Ryder Cup 1991
Record: 3 matches, 1.5 points 
Alfred Dunhill Cup (representing Ireland): 1990 (winners)
Four Tours World Championship: 1990, 1991 (winners)

Fact File
Date of Birth : August 13th 1958
Birthplace: Bangor, Co. Down
Turned Professional: 1976
Original Club : Balmoral Golf Club



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GMAC Spills Beans. Or Does He?

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The topic that holds most intrigue during a Ryder Cup is which pairings the captains will send out on Friday for the opening matches. 

Telescopic lens have long been deployed on the skippers with the aim of garnering clues and the golfing paparazzi struck gold four years ago in Valhalla when European captain Nick Faldo was snapped holding his list of players. Faldo tried to explain it away as "a sandwich list" but the only pickle was the one in which the captain found himself. 

His successor at Medinah this week, José Maria Olazabal, is much more canny. 

"I’m not going to talk about pairings, seriously," the Spaniard said yesterday, when asked about a reprise of the Graeme McDowell/Rory McIlroy axis that won one, lost one and halved a match at Celtic Manor in 2010. 

"You know, G-Mac has played with Rory before. They have done well, but I’m not going to talk about pairings obviously." 

Obviously, José? Just a couple of hours beforehand, the aforementioned McDowell had abandoned Ryder Cup convention and come right out with the line-up for Friday’s four foursomes matches. 

"The established partnerships are fairly obvious: Myself and Rory, Poulter and Rose, Donald and Garcia, perhaps a Westwood and Lawrie. You can pretty much predict our first eight players Friday morning. You don’t need me to tell you that. Will we be that predictable? Who knows," McDowell said. 

"I can tell you today that the first four guys (in practice groups), Poulter, Rose, Westwood and Donald, and myself and Rory are in the second group with Lawrie and Garcia. 

"So there’s your eight, the first two groups, fairly predictable. But it’s really going to come down to putting. You’ve got 24 great players. I don’t see any real stand out advantage for either team. It’s just going to boil down to who holes the most putts this week." 

Maybe McDowell had overdosed on his morning coffee or it was all part of some elaborate mind game; the Ulsterman might just have been telling the truth. But no-one else confirmed same. 

Asked to explain the make-up of his practice groups, the third of which featured Nicolas Colsaerts, Peter Hanson, Martin Kaymer and Francesco Molinari, Olazabal said: "Well, I’ve made these groups. We have quite a lot of players that have done well in the past, and then I’ve tried to mix a little bit of, not the same characters, but guys that I believe can complement each other and who understand each other really well. "We are trying to just figure out certain things still," he offered.


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