Colin Montgomerie is the master of the intangible, the little extras that are greater than the sum of their parts. As the latest rendition of the Ryder Cup creeps ever closer, the European skipper’s most inspired move may not have been when finalizing the make-up of his squad, but in completing his posse of co-captains.

Naming Sergio Garcia in such a role has already been universally acclaimed as a fine idea, such is the 30-year-old Spaniard’s love and affinity for this competition. Garcia’s modern form has been woeful enough to preclude his consideration in a playing capacity, but no one can forget the passion and productivity he brought to the European challenge on countless occasions.

Surely Montgomerie had his mind’s eye trained upon the memory of another Spaniard, Seve Ballesteros, and his inspirational captaincy role at Valderrama in 1997, when scratching in Garcia’s name.

Montgomerie is an often irascible character whose mood swings can be just as dark as his golf swing, at least in his prime, was glorious.

The Ryder Cup, and the chance to square off against the United States, always brought out his finest as a player and there is great hope in Europe that he can have a similar effect in a managerial role.

His preparations have been lengthy and meticulous, and Sunday provided the chance to make the first of an endless stream of decisions that will determine whether the trophy is retained by the United States or is wrested back by Europe.

Montgomerie’s trio of captain’s picks – Padraig Harrington, Luke Donald and Edoardo Molinari – represent either bravery or foolhardiness, but it won’t be until late in the evening of October 3 that we know which.

In making his picks, the Europe captain juggled the various facets of championship-winning experience, public profile, ranking status and fresh-faced enthusiasm yet was plagued by the reality that five doesn’t go into three. Harrington got the nod as he is Europe’s only multiple major winner, Donald for past Ryder Cup consistency, Molinari for the sparkling recent form that saw him win Sunday’s Johnnie Walker Championship with three birdies in the last three holes.

For Paul Casey (ninth in the world) and Justin Rose (No.22), ranking and recognition were not enough. For those men, the certainty that their absence will be used as a stick to beat Montgomerie with should Europe fail, will be little consolation.

Montgomerie knows full well that there is no such thing as an honorable defeat in the Ryder Cup, the only event in mainstream sports where traditional rivalries between European nations are set aside and the continent unites behind a common goal.

As such, he is leaving nothing to chance, so much so that he has even appointed a local Welshman, Rhys Davies, as his personal buggy driver for the event.

Davies, an emerging talent who won a European Tour event earlier this year, knows the Celtic Manor course "like the back of his hand" and will surely be able to offer some useful insight as well as driving skills.

Just another of the little extras that can’t be measured by strokes or yardage.

"Of course this is going to be decided on the course," said Montgomerie. "But there are a thousand other things that you can do. If even a few of those things give your team a fractional edge, it could make all the difference."

This can’t be easy for Tiger Woods. Smiling, and waving and chipping in front of the crowds, and then heading back to his rental house knowing that yes, life this week and for the weeks to come will be totally different.

On Tuesday, Tiger announced on his website that he and his wife Elin would be divorcing, an announcement that shocked few but still rattled the shaken world of Mr. Woods. He then had to go out on Thursday and play in these FedEx Cup playoffs that initially seemed tailor-made for Tiger, but are now just a struggle to make it to the next week.

But he went out on Thursday with a 65, and then couldn’t find that same magic on Friday and Saturday. It’s been typical of Tiger this season to get us thinking he found his game again only to struggle as the event lingered on. But this week was different. On Saturday Tiger made a triple-bogey on his opening hole, which basically cost him any shot at the title at Ridgewood, but he bounced back with three birdies on his back nine to salvage the round. Then, on Sunday, Tiger closed with a really tidy 67 that included just 27 putts.

If things stay the way they are right now, Tiger will card his first top-10 since the U.S. Open, and first non-major top-10 of the season. What Tiger is looking for right now is glimpses, and it seemed this week he had a lot of them.

He yelled at shots to be right. He rolled in lengthy par putts like the Tiger of 2000. He hit 78 percent of his fairways, the best of anyone in the field, and he was one bad hole away from seriously competing.

People wonder when Tiger will finally get that first win, and I keep preaching that his game isn’t sharp enough to beat the caliber of player that makes up a PGA Tour event, but it is weeks like this that Woods must take as a positive. No, he didn’t claim his 72nd PGA Tour victory, and he wasn’t in the final group, lurking with his Sunday red like in the past, but it was a building block for something better.

This week might just be enough for Corey Pavin to add Tiger to his Ryder Cup squad. If he putts at all in October like he did at the Barclays, the decision will turn out to be the right one.

Follow Shane Bacon on Twitter at @shanebacon.  

For all the thousands and thousands of rules that the game of golf possesses, the only one that you must always abide by is this; be honest, because the moment someone calls you a cheater, that smell will never go away.

This week at the CN Canadian Women’s Open, two of the brightest stars in the game are atop the leaderboard, but it is two names that won’t be making a check that are getting the most press. That is Shi Hyun Ahn (right) and Ilmi Chung (left), two players that were disqualified on Thursday for playing the wrong ball on the final hole, but signing the scorecard without any penalty.

People play the wrong golf ball all the time, so that isn’t the problem. The uproar comes because some think that both players knew they had done wrong but decided between themselves that they weren’t going to say anything.

Two reports have come up, with one being that the ladies knew what they had done, but had a discussion in Korean after the hole, telling one caddie, "You did not see anything."

That problem with that account is it is coming from a longtime caddie named Larry Smich, who has been accusing the Korean-born players of cheating for a long time, and has been called a racist numerous times for it. The other account, filed by Waggle Room, says that Chung’s caddie approached the third member of the group’s caddie and said, "We have a bit of a problem, but I’m not saying anything."

While what exactly happened is still a bit up in the air, the bottom line is that two players knew they had done something against the rules, and signed an incorrect scorecard anyway. If this is something that has actually happened in the past, and players from other countries are using their language barrier to speak about something without the rest of the group knowing, some rules might have to be put in place.

As of now, it seems that the LPGA has another problem on their hands, and this one could end up being very, very big.

Somebody’s waaaaay lost.

That’s Paul Broadhurst of England, playing at Gleneagles in The Johnnie Walker Championship in Scotland. Mmmm … Johnnie Walker. That reminds me, it’s almost the weekend, and that means it’s time to relax and check out some fine golf on both the gentlemen’s and ladies’ side of the fence. Be sure to stop by Devil Ball for updates throughout the weekend, and we’ll see you soon. Hit ‘em straight, and keep ‘em out of the heather!

Fifteen months ago, if Tiger Woods had opened with a 65 at the Barclays, the game would have been over. Nobody would be wondering how he was going to do on Friday, we would all just expect him to do something equally as impressive in the second round, on his way to, yawn, another PGA Tour victory.

But 2010 has been as strange a year as ever in the golf world, and most of that has to do with Tiger. Starting the day 6-under, Woods teed off on the back nine to start his round, and made two birdies over his first nine holes. He was leading the first leg of the FedEx Cup, and everything seemed normal again.

That was, until Tiger turned to his second nine holes, and everything fell apart. He couldn’t buy a putt with all the money he has, and ended the day with a very disappointing 2-over 73 that has him four shots back of the leaders.

That front nine, the same cluster of holes that Tiger went around in just 31 shots on Thursday, didn’t give up a birdie to the top golfer in the land, and the four bogeys he made over his final eight holes dropped him on down the leaderboard, with a ton of names between him and another trophy.

"I hit a couple loose iron shots, but more than anything I didn’t putt well," Tiger said after his round. "I just could not get my speed right. And when you get greens like this, you have to get the ball rolling quickly. I wasn’t doing that."

After round one, Tiger was the talk of the golf world, but as we’ve seen with his game this season, there is hardly any similarity between rounds for Woods.

He will have another shot on Saturday to come out and do what he did so well for 27 hole, but couldn’t figure out for the final nine.

Hey, since everybody’s tired of talking about Tiger Woods, let’s go with politics! You may have heard there’s this whole little battle going on about a Muslim community center being built in the vicinity of Ground Zero. (Aside: keep up with all news by adding Yahoo!’s Upshot blog to your daily reading. You’ll notice it’s got a very familiar look to it.)

Anyway, here’s how this story intersects with golf. Wei Under Par has found a Facebook post by LPGA Hall of Famer and ambassador Carol Mann in which she … well, just read:

Okay, without taking a position on the issue myself, I can see where this might cause a few problems for Ms. Mann. She’s one of the most visible faces of women’s golf in the sport — just check out her resume here. And as a special ambassador of the World Golf Hall of Fame, she’s just gone and taken a stand against a large segment of the world’s population, some of whom no doubt might be future golfers.

So, community discussion time here. Should a person in Mann’s very public position put forth potentially divisive opinions? Or are a person’s religious beliefs above reproach, speculation or criticism? Does Mann have an obligation to be more inclusive because of her position as a special ambassador, or should she be free to express her own views without consequence? (Remember, this isn’t a free speech issue. She’s perfectly welcome to say whatever she likes without fear of being thrown in jail. But the First Amendment doesn’t apply to economic or career consequences for one’s speech.)  

There you go. Have at it. 

Phil Mickelson haters, here’s a little red meat for you. Try not to gobble it all down too fast.

Mickelson, yet again in position to dethrone Tiger Woods as the world No. 1, yet again in position to solidify his place atop the world of golf, yet again spit the bit and fell apart, this time in the second round of the Barclays.

Lefty was coming off a Thursday in which many players took advantage of favorable conditions to shoot well under par. Mickelson, by contrast, shot an unremarkable 1-over 72. Not great, but hey — still time to straighten up and then make some noise on the weekend, right?

Wrong. Mickelson started ugly — two bogeys in the first three holes — and then seesawed back and forth between birdies and bogeys for most of the next dozen or so holes. With four holes remaining and sitting at 1-over — the current cut line at this writing — Mickelson only had to make par coming in to stay safe.

Alas, it wasn’t to be. Mickelson bogeyed the eighth (his 17th hole) and double-bogeyed the ninth after hitting rough, rough, rough, two-putt. And that, as they say, was that.

Mickelson has been inconsistent all season, but within a limited range; this is only the second cut (after the Crowne Plaza Invitational) he’s missed all season. And this won’t cost him significantly in the FedEx standings; he started the tournament in fourth place and won’t drop far out of the top 10.

So, yeah, we’ve got plenty more Mickelson golf to watch in the weeks ahead. Question is, is that good news or bad news? 

Tiger Tiger Tiger Tiger Woods. Let’s go ahead and get that out of our system right now. We talk a bit of Tiger here, specifically whether he’ll play better now that he’s a single man again. From there, we segue into a discussion of Shane’s instantly notorious anti-stack and tilt post, and consider whether stack and tilt qualifies as fad or cult. Finally, we discuss Shane’s caddying efforts for the LPGA’s Irene Cho, and we flat-out run out of time to talk about rules controversies or playoffs. Next week, we promise.  

As always, I’m joined by Shane Bacon, writer here and at Dogs That Chase Cars. (Follow Shane on Twitter right here, and while you’re there, follow me too.)

We welcome your thoughts, ideas and recommendations on the podcast. Hit me up at jay.busbee@yahoo.com. And if you’ve got a question or comment for us to kick around, call our Skype line at 678-389-9173 and leave your message. Click the little arrow below to play the podcast or right-click it to download, and hit the iTunes site linked below to subscribe. Have at it!

Devil Ball Golfcast, Episode 48 — Stack and tilt THIS