Alex Miceli - September 5, 2012

• By Morning Drive Team
• Sep 5, 2012 8:53 AM ET

Golf Channel Contributor Alex Miceli is in Carmel, Indiana this week for the BMW Championship. Now that the four Captain’s Picks have been made for the U.S. team, Miceli does not think that any of the four players were particularly controversial unlike it past years. Mahan, Fowler, and Watney were left off of the team but no one seems to disagree with those decisions.

When it comes to successful U.S. Foursomes pairings, Miceli immediately mentioned the name of Brandt Snedeker because despite being a rookie, he is such a good putter and has such a good personality that he would be a great partner for anyone in that format. He can also envision Captain Love III splitting up the duo of Tiger Woods and Steve Stricker but that decision will depend on factors like course setup at Medinah. Tiger is hitting the ball well enough right now that he will not need someone to keep the ball in play as a backup.

Tiger Woods is playing with Buddy Marucci in the Pro-Am today and Woods defeated Marucci to win the 1995 U.S. Amateur. Marucci plays a lot of competitive golf and in fact he nearly defeated Tiger in 1995 at Newport Country Club so he does not anticipate that Tiger would give Marucci too many strokes in a potential money match.

He thinks that long hitters like Rory McIlroy and Dustin Johnson will be able to take advantage of this golf course because the fairways are pretty generous and they will able to fire darts into the greens. While there have been instances of shorter hitters having success at Crooked Stick, Miceli said that you should look towards the longer hitters when you are trying to predict contenders.

Davis Love III said that the U.S. team this year is probably the strongest it has ever been and the same can be argued for the European team. Love III should not have any problems putting together strong foursome and four-ball pairings and Miceli added that no one should be surprised to see strong performances at Medinah from the U.S. team.

It is his understanding that the process of making the U.S. Captain’s Picks began during The Open Championship so when you consider that, it is not too surprising that Brandt Snedeker was on the radar for as long as he was. He finished T3 at Royal Lytham & St. Annes

While the FedExCup Playoff events have provided exciting events and great leaderboards, the Ryder Cup has dominated the conversation. Miceli said that while it is understandable to think that the PGA TOUR is concerned about this, he said that they are not especially because the tournaments are not too worried.

Phil Mickelson seems to be finding his form on the greens with a modified claw grip and Miceli is not surprised by this because last year, he even switched to a belly putter in an effort to revive his putting. He constantly tinkers with various aspects of his game in terms of preparation and equipment and he tends to find answers on many of those occasions.