I maintain that the reason the golf world works itself into such a tizzy “over the selection of the Ryder Cup team”:http://www.lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080903/SPORTS01/809030392/1108/SPORTS01 is because it’s closest the game gets to other sports.

Think about it. In the other sport I cover, hockey, the two most anxiously-anticipated days are the day of the trade deadline and the first day of free agency—fueling my theory that as much as fans like hockey, they actually like playing amateur general manager more.

With golf’s disparate collection of independent contractors, you can’t do that. When Phil Mickelson tees off in the BMW Championship this week, what are fans going to say? “Oh man, Phil Mickelson is starting Phil Mickelson again! What a mistake!”

The exception is the Ryder Cup and to a lesser extent, the Presidents Cup. Only here can you mull topics like chemistry, complementary pairings, and of course, speculate endlessly on the behind-the-scenes activities in “the team room” (the popular notion is 12 guys guffawing around a ping-pong table, but who’s to say it’s not 12 guys scrolling mindlessly through their Blackberrys?).

I admit, I get caught up in it, too, to the extent that when “Azinger announced Steve Stricker, J.B. Holmes, Hunter Mahan, and Chad Campbell at the press conference in the city today”:http://www.lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080903/SPORTS01/809030392/1108/SPORTS01, I immediately turned to a buddy to my left and practically screamed, “Campbell?” This would have been fine if Azinger’s assistant captain Olin Browne and his wife weren’t sitting right in front of me.

But even then, they barely flinched. That’s what this whole process is all about, after all. You can’t have the Ryder Cup without the requisite mentions of sportsmanship and camaraderie. And you can’t have it without fans and media second-guessing every move.

And that’s even before Captain Azinger rolls out his selection in uniforms…