Preview - PGA Championship 2006

While most of the attention of the golf world is focused on the fact that the PGA Championship is the season's final major, the subplot of United States team qualifying exists and Lehman admits there is plenty of work left to do.

This is the final week of qualifying for the U.S. team and come Monday morning, Lehman will make his two captain's picks to round out the 12-player squad. There are a number of intriguing possibilities, a fact not lost on Lehman.

"I'm going to be completely honest with you and say I don't have the first clue right now who I'm going to pick," Lehman said. "There are a number of guys who I think would fit, but I don't know, I mean I haven't even finalized on one of them yet."

Lehman also has not ruled himself out as a player-captain should he vault into the top 10 with a good showing this week. He is coming off a runner-up performance at the International, where he lost in a playoff and has at least one member of the squad pulling for him to make it.

"(Chris) DiMarco cornered me yesterday and he said 'We've all talked about it, if you make the team you're playing, period.' I told him that's really nice but I am the captain and I get to make the decision," Lehman said. "It's all conjecture and something we'll actually talk about if it happens Sunday."

What's not conjecture is that Lehman will have the top two players in the world on his team in Woods and Phil Mickelson as well as a number of rookies. If the current standings hold, Vaughn Taylor, J.J. Henry, Zach Johnson and Brett Wetterich would all make their Ryder Cup debuts at the K Club next month. The fact that 40 percent of his automatic qualifiers could be rookies is not something that bothers Lehman, and he figures it has to happen at some point.

"The idea of not having experience in the Ryder Cup does not scare me at all, to be honest with you," Lehman said. "I've been saying all along, when it comes to the Ryder Cup, there was a time when Jack (Nicklaus) was a rookie, there was a time when (Tom) Watson was a rookie. (Fred) Couples, Byron Nelson, Ben Hogan, Arnold Palmer, they were all rookies at one time."

One reason that Lehman is not concerned about the possibility of a relatively young squad is that Woods, Mickelson, Jim Furyk, David Toms and DiMarco have plenty of it and have expressed the desire to help the newcomers get acclimated to the unique environment of Ryder Cup play.

"I think that what is most important with first-year guys is that you have the older guys who are willing to step up and be their so-called mentor," Lehman said. "Someone who can kind of take them by the shoulder and lead the way and walk them through it.

"I'm here to tell you right now that we've got a team full of those guys who are not only willing, but have told me, "Don't worry about the young guys, I'll take care of them.'"

Maybe some new blood would not be so bad. Any experience a player has built lately has been of the losing variety, as the Europeans have won four of the last five encounters, including an 18 1/2 to 9 1/2 rout at Oakland Hills two years ago.

The last time a United States team won was in 1999 when the PGA was here at Medinah. And don't think Lehman missed the coincidence.

"The last time the U.S. team won the Ryder Cup was in 1999 when we were in Medinah playing for the PGA Championship," Lehman said. "I think about those things and I think we've got some good karma going. I'm not too worried about the sideline issues."