Columnist Adam Candee: Chris crossed: Nice thought, bad outcome

Adam Candee

Wednesday, Sept. 22, 2004 | 9:06 a.m.

Adam Candee covers golf for the Sun. Reach him at (702) 259-4085 or by e-mail at candee@lasvegassun.com.

Good intentions, both UNLV golf coach Dwaine Knight and that voice in our head we want to believe tell us.

They are what Chris Riley exhibited last weekend at the Ryder Cup when he asked out of Saturday afternoon play because he felt too drained to play after stirring the United States team from its slumber alongside Tiger Woods earlier that day.

But you know where the cart path paved with good intentions leads, don't you?

The country quickly let Riley, a former UNLV player, know that they were sending him to golf hell for his choice, which burned even brighter under the magnifying glass of the United States' putrid showing at Oakland Hills. NBC's Johnny Miller immediately called him out on the TV broadcast and by Sunday morning, the print media heartily stepped on the buried lie in which the game's foremost analyst plugged him.

By all accounts, and especially that of Knight, Riley is as good of a man as you will find on the tour. That makes it easy to believe that Riley just wanted to give a rested and equally talented player an opportunity to continue the momentum he helped to build.

But even Knight, the ultimate defender of his boys, indirectly explained exactly why we just couldn't come to terms with Riley's excuse. Here's how Knight, himself once a PGA tour pro, described the Ryder Cup:

"I'd say it's the Super Bowl of golf because of the atmosphere. The players want to win the majors, (but) if you want to play in the ultimate golf experience, you want to play in the Ryder Cup."

The Super Bowl, most people think ... couldn't you find a way to gut it out in the Super Bowl? Willis Reed and Kirk Gibson both hobbled on one leg in championship tilts, Michael Jordan collapsed from the flu after fighting through a title game and you're out because you're too tired?

With all due respect to Riley's demanding lead-in month of caring for a newborn baby and a recuperating wife, the regular guy who burns for just one chance at anything in life as big as this just doesn't want to hear it.

Riley wanted to play, right? This is the same guy who nearly jumped through the phone and tackled American captain Hal Sutton when he got the call to play.

The irony in this is that in a sport often criticized for its cold individualism, Riley obviously thought he was being a team guy by admitting his shortcoming and stepping aside. There's nothing wrong with that. It's admirable to be so honest as to give up that spotlight.

The problem is that Sutton told Riley exactly what he thought a team guy should do -- get his butt back out on the course on golf's biggest stage, the one he burned so badly to play on. Riley said he'd go, but apparently with all the enthusiasm of last week's leftovers. Sutton didn't need to -- or want to -- hear any more.

Funny thing is, if Riley chooses to play the afternoon and somehow wins after that pep talk, both he and Sutton become instant heroes. Even if Riley loses, he probably still gets an A-plus for effort for winning with Woods and answering Sutton's challenge to play.

Instead, Riley went from the feel-good story of a little-known Ryder Cup rookie with inspiring energy and his first baby on the way to a high-profile punctuation mark to endless analysis of America's fourth loss to Europe in the past five Cup matches.

Riley will never get a second chance to make a first impression on America and it's sad and terribly unfortunate that their picture of who he is just doesn't jibe with much outside of a 30-second conversation with Sutton.

But Riley made his bed in which to rest up and he slept in it, inviting the nation's judgment. The verdict: How you play the game isn't nearly as important to people as if you play at all.