Haas, Funk are studies in contrasting ideals

This is a tale of two Americans - one too old for this and another old enough to know better.

Jay Haas, 50, went through hell (well, Greenville, S.C.) and back to make it to the British Open this week.

Fred Funk, 48, is catching hell from his peers for skipping his exemption into the British Open in favor of a cushier field at the concurrent B.C. Open.

Both men are desperately chasing Ryder Cup points. Only one deserves style points for doing it the right way.

Funk illustrates the worst of an epidemic lack of desire and plain old good manners by Americans. Haas represents the best of old-fashioned American ideals.

Which one would you want representing the United States against Europe on the Ryder Cup team?

Funk, who finished sixth at the U.S. Open in June, is ranked ninth in the current Ryder Cup standings with a month left before the top 10 spots are automatically locked up after the PGA Championship.

Seeking a little security, Funk withdrew from a major championship to play in one of the most minor PGA Tour events because he'd have a better chance of getting a top-10 finish and the Ryder Cup points that go with it.

He won the B.C. Open in 1996 and finished second there in 1999 and 2002.

Nick Price called Funk's reasoning "pretty sad," which was slightly nicer than Price's assessment of Sunday's John Deere champion Mark Hensby declining a last-minute invite to his first major as the "bonehead move of the year."

Funk is the only American on the Ryder Cup bubble to skip the British Open to seek more promising points elsewhere. Every player ranked 11th through 19th in the Ryder Cup standings showed up in Troon, including Haas at 12th.

Jeff Maggert, ranked 10th in the Ryder Cup standings, failed to qualify for the British Open despite finishing third in the U.S. Open and fifth in the 2003 Masters Tournament. Maggert withdrew halfway through qualifying at Congressional Country Club when it was clear he wouldn't make it.

At least he showed up. After the Royal & Ancient Golf Club went out of its way to accommodate PGA Tour players with its first stateside qualifying venue that happened to be across the street from a PGA Tour site, 53 players withdrew or simply failed to show up.

And we wonder why the rest of the world considers us ugly Americans.

Now let's look at Haas - another former B.C. Open winner (1981) with three top-five finishes there in his past six appearances versus no top-20 finishes ever in the British Open. The AARP-eligible golfer considered skipping the British Open as well, but only after he was standing in Chicago's O'Hare Airport on Sunday waiting for his overseas flight without a passport in his pocket.

"I felt like someone had kicked me in the stomach," Haas wrote in his diary for PGATour.com.

Instead of taking the easy route out and withdrawing, Haas got moving. He caught a late flight home to Greenville, slept for two hours, hired a private plane to Washington, D.C., and just made a red-eye to London to connect to Glasgow, Scotland, where he arrived at Troon after midnight Tuesday.

"I wouldn't recommend doing what I just did," Haas said.

There was a time when Americans playing the British Open were more oddities than the norm. In their primes, Sam Snead and Ben Hogan went over there only once and came home winners. Snead didn't go back for 16 years after winning in 1946 at St. Andrews because the winnings didn't cover his expenses.

That's no excuse any more. This year's $7.4 million purse and $1.34 million winner's share (based on Wednesday's currency exchange rate) makes the British the second largest payout in golf history. Simply making the cut would cover these millionaires' travel expenses and then some.

Once Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus made competing in the British Open a priority in the 1960s, Americans finally latched onto the idea that playing in the oldest tournament in golf wasn't just a novelty. It was a privilege and should be indulged as such.

Too many Americans consider making one trip to Great Britain a hassle - citing bad weather, quirky courses and high costs as excuses.

You don't see NASCAR guys skipping Sears Point because it's too far across the country and they don't like road courses.

What Funk and Scott Hoch and Kirk Triplett (all of them in the running for Ryder Cup inclusion) did by saying no to the British Open makes them no better than clay-court pansies Gustavo Kuerten and Alex Corretja, who routinely skip Wimbledon with bogus injuries.

They don't display the basic tenet of golf - playing the ball and course as you find it. They don't display the heart of champions. They don't warrant Ryder Cup consideration.

Here's hoping Haas has a good week at Troon, Funk fails at the B.C. and U.S. captain Hal Sutton is watching closely to see who has the true grit and heart of an unpampered American.

Reach Scott Michaux at (706) 823-3219 or scott.michaux@augustachronicle.com.