ESPN Golf

Memo to the numerous pundits and fans who are still harping on the U.S. team's Ryder Cup debacle nearly a month after the competition concluded: Enough is enough.

The Great Flub at The K Club has inspired various theories as to why the Americans can't win and how their fortunes might turn. Let's sweep the ideas under the rug for a little while, as it's time to turn our attention to other matters.

After all, the players have. And so has the captain. This week, Tom Lehman commenced his post-Ryder Cup playing career at the Funai Classic, shooting 73-70 to miss the cut. Is it an isolated instance or will this downward spiral become a trend? The Weekly 18 begins with an examination into Lehman's future.

If recent history has anything to say about it, Tom Lehman's playing career is about to take a dramatic turn for the worse. Case in point: In post-Ryder Cup captaincy appearances on the PGA Tour, the last three U.S. skippers -- Hal Sutton, Curtis Strange and Ben Crenshaw -- have made a combined 55 starts, reaching the weekend only seven times, the top result coming in Crenshaw's 47th place finish at this year's Masters.

Then again, Lehman is no Sutton, Strange or Crenshaw. Let's run the numbers. In 39 starts during the time he was serving as captain, Sutton made 21 cuts, but had become increasingly less productive, with no top-20 finishes in 2004. Two years after captaining the team, he's made only one start on tour while taking a respite from the limelight. During his own three-year captaincy, Strange played in 31 events and made the cut 11 times. Upon his losing bid in 2002, he quickly took to the television booth and played sporadically before becoming a full-timer on the Champions Tour. Crenshaw made 28 starts as the U.S. team's leader, reaching the weekend only twice during that time. Like Strange, his focus quickly turned toward the senior circuit upon relinquishing his duties.

By comparison, Lehman, 47, is still very much at the top of his game. He competed in 38 PGA Tour events during his reign as captain, reaching the weekend on 28 of those occasions, including eight top-10s and three runner-up finishes. The five-time winner was so successful, in fact, that he made a serious bid to earn his way onto this year's Ryder Cup squad based on points.

So which will prevail: Lehman's recent history or that of the last three Ryder Cup captains? It's a question Lehman must be asking himself now that he can fully devote attention to his own game once again.

"After seven weeks off, I actually hurt a little bit," Lehman told ESPN following the first round at Disney. "I haven't played since the end of August, and there's something to be said for being tournament tough."

Whatever the future holds, Lehman will surely remain a compelling story line next season and beyond, as he tries to break the recent curse of the U.S. Ryder Cup captains.

Think Joe Durant likes easy courses (by comparison) and benign conditions? The Funai Classic at Walt Disney World champion shot a four-round total of 25-under 263, 1 stroke behind the tournament record of 26-under, held by John Huston (1992) and Duffy Waldorf (2000). In his three previous PGA Tour victories, Durant finished 17-under (1998 Western Open), 36-under (the five-round 2001 Bob Hope Classic) and 18-under (2001 Ford Championship at Doral). However, surprisingly enough, Durant ranks only 117th on tour in birdie average and 145th in birdie or better conversion percentage.

With the $828,000 winner's check, Durant eclipsed the $2 million mark for the second time in his career and has placed himself squarely on the bubble for inclusion into the Tour Championship, which will take place in two weeks. He is now 29th on the money list, meaning a decent showing at this week's Chrysler Championship -- or a poor showing from players in the next 35 or so spots behind him -- will qualify him for East Lake. Durant has competed in the season-ending event only once in his 10-year PGA Tour career, finishing T-10 in his two-win campaign of 2001, when the tournament was held at Champions GC in Houston.

Frank Lickliter's final-round 10-under 62 on Sunday was reminiscent of Ryan Palmer's exploits of two years ago. In the same tournament, Palmer shot the same score in the same round as Lickliter, rallying from a 5-shot deficit entering the day to claim a 3-stroke victory. Unlike Palmer, however, Lickliter's 62 wasn't enough to win the tournament. Instead, he finished tied for second place, 4 shots behind Durant.

It was a fairly typical PGA Tour bogey. On the final hole Sunday, Troy Matteson left his approach shot short of the green, instead finding the front bunker. From there, he wedged out, then 2-putted to make what might seem like a fairly benign 5 to most observers. Uh, not exactly. The bogey cost Matteson -- last week's winner at the Frys.com Open -- solo second place, dropping him to a share of the runner-up spot with Lickliter. It also cost Matteson $92,000, which meant that rather than finishing the week at 36th on the money list, he's now 42nd. Why is that such a big deal? The top 40 at the end of the season earn a trip to Augusta for next year's Masters; had Matteson made par on that final hole, he could likely start booking his reservations already. Instead, he'll need to earn some cash in Tampa this week.

On Thursday, Justin Rose became the 13th player since 1958 to shoot 60 in a PGA Tour round (three others have shot 59). On Sunday, he became the ninth of those 13 -- and third this season -- to fail to earn a title during the same week. Rose followed his opening round of 12 birdies, six pars with scores of 67-72-69 to finish in fourth place. But he can take heart in one thing: The result was better than either Arron Oberholser's at the Byron Nelson Championship in May or Pat Perez's at the Bob Hope Classic in January. Oberholser shot a second-round 60, but still couldn't crack the top-10, finishing T-13 for the week. Meanwhile, after firing a first-round 60 in the desert, Perez failed to break 70 in four subsequent rounds, finishing 73rd of the 77 who made the cut that week.

Vijay Singh has earned plenty of cash in recent years due to his propensity for going low on Sundays. In 2003, his 69.24 final-round scoring average ranked ninth; two years ago (when he won nine titles), that score increased to 69.78, but he moved up in the rankings to sixth; and last season was almost an exact duplicate, with his 69.84 average on Sunday leaving him in eighth place in that category. So what's up with Vijay this year? Entering Disney, Singh ranked 53rd on tour with a final-round scoring average of 70.90, but on Sunday he did plenty to help lower that number, shooting a very Vijay-like 8-under 64 to finish T-5.

While researching Singh's final-round scoring average, we found this strange but true fact: Call it a statistical anomaly or one man's penchant for stepping up when it matters most, but Omar Uresti has ranked in the top three in this category during each of the last two seasons. In 16 Sunday rounds a year ago, Uresti averaged 69.38, second to only Tiger Woods. This year, his 69.50 score trails Woods and Steve Stricker. Strangely enough, unlike Singh, Uresti's solid Sundays haven't equated to more cash; he ranked 136th on the money list last year and was 131st this season before the Funai (in which he didn't compete).

Here's guessing Brian Bateman didn't enjoy his time in the spotlight this week. As the man ensconced in the 125th position on the money list, Bateman was the subject of many pretournament articles and discussions, the face of this year's boys on the bubble. "Sure, it's maintaining your job, but if your goal is just to get inside 125, you're going to linger right around 125 all year," Bateman said before the Funai Classic. "If you just come out here each week and try to make a cut, then you're going to look up with a couple holes left on Friday and you're going to be right around the cut line." Turns out, he would have loved to be around the cut line. Instead, Bateman shot 75-70 to miss the number by 6 strokes.

Whether someone at the PGA Tour was having fun with tee times or it truly was a more random selection, the early-bird fans for Thursday's opening round had plenty of story lines to watch, as the boys on the bubble were bunched in the early morning groupings off the first tee. Among those to hit the first shots of the tournament were Paul Azinger, Rich Beem, Bateman and John Cook, ranked 122nd, 124th, 125th and 126th, respectively.

Although Bateman received much of the attention, the man whose nerves should have been really shaken entering Disney was Tag Ridings, who was No. 150 on the money list. After all, at 125th, Bateman is assured of at least partial status for next season, but Ridings was on the verge of a more precarious bubble. He responded with rounds of 65-66 that left him in second place at the midway point of the tournament, but finished with a pair of 73s to drop all the way to T-43 when the weekend was over.

Somewhat quietly, it's been a strong comeback season for Jesper Parnevik. After finishing last season at No. 109 on the money list -- his second campaign in the triple digits in the last three years -- he was 87th overall with just over $1 million going into the Funai, where he finished T-9. Buoyed by an early-season T-2 at the Bob Hope Classic, Parnevik has now cashed a check in 16 of 23 overall starts.

You don't see this very often: During his opening 36 holes at Disney, Huston tallied four eagles and four birdies … and still missed the cut. He also made eight bogeys during those first two rounds, as his 67-73-140 score left him 1 stroke off the cutline.

For those who continue to wonder why the media shines its spotlight on Michelle Wie anytime she makes any news, we submit this information: On Wednesday, GolfDigest.com's Ron Sirak broke the news of Wie's agent, Ross Berlin, leaving for an executive position with the PGA Tour and being replaced by Greg Nared, formerly of Nike. The article had very little to do with Wie herself, really appealing more to golf insiders and those in the business. Yet by the end of the day, after only being posted on ESPN.com for 12 hours, the piece was among this Web site's 10 most sent stories, with 115 total readers forwarding it onto others. That's especially jarring during NFL and college football season and in the middle of Major League Baseball's playoffs, but remains consistent with how anything having to do with Wie regularly moves the needle.

You read it here first. From the Sept. 17 edition of the Weekly 18: "With renewed focus on this tour, expect [Chip] Beck to return to his winning ways in the not-to-distant future." OK, so our prediction hasn't come true … yet. The leader when he walked off the course at the AT&T Championship on Sunday, Beck simply had to sit and watch as Fred Funk birdied three of the final four holes to earn a come-from-behind 1-shot victory. Don't count out Beck just yet, though. In five events on the senior tour this season, he owns four top-five results, including a pair of runner-up finishes. Suffice it to say, we stand by that previous comment.

The Weekly 18 received an e-mail earlier this week that included a You Tube clip. Thinking it might be a humorous piece of video to share in the column, we gave it a look and, well, it wasn't very funny. But the theory behind wanting to show a comical clip was a good one, so we perused the Web site and found, well, not much to choose from. The best of the bunch? This golf-themed ad for the World Cup, which might not be very timely, but should bring a smile (and a wince) to your face.

"Ah, shut up."
-- ABC commentator Peter Alliss, summing up the collective feelings of golf purists everywhere, when a spectator shouted, "Get in the hole!" during a Justin Rose putt on Sunday.

"You're going to Hawaii, Joe!"
-- A more creative spectator, shouting to Joe Durant after the leader hit his approach on the final hole Sunday. With the victory, Durant qualifies for the Mercedes-Benz Championships, to be held at Kapalua this January.

Jason Sobel is ESPN.com's golf editor. He can be reached at Jason.Sobel@espn3.com