Perry at home in Louisville

Kentuckian sees Ryder Cup as possible highlight of golfing career

LOUISVILLE, KY. -- Kenny Perry is a 48-year-old gentleman with a fondness for muscle cars, square deals and his old Kentucky home.

With his brushy dark hair, unconventional golf swing and soft drawl, Perry is as down home as mashed potatoes.

For a portion of this summer, Perry was the best golfer in the world not named Tiger Woods, even if he did take a public beating for choosing to focus his golf career on one moment -- this Ryder Cup moment -- rather than the major championships where endorsements and legacies are sealed.

And now that the Ryder Cup has arrived at Valhalla Golf Club, just 130 miles north of Perry's home in Franklin, Ky., where he keeps his cars and his heart, he may become a rock star.

Searching for something, anything, that can stir the American team out of its nearly decade-long Ryder Cup funk, captain Paul Azinger probably will turn to Perry and his fellow Kentuckian, monster-long J.B. Holmes, to stir the collective soul of a team, a gallery and an international event.

The Ryder Cup, for all its amusing intrigue, is as much about passion as it is about golf. Ask Ben Crenshaw or Darren Clarke or Sergio Garcia.

That is where Perry fits into this Ryder Cup equation, and it's how he wants it. You can hear it in his voice, see it in his eyes, feel it in his presence.

"I've put all my eggs in this basket. This is what I'll be remembered for in my career in golf, period," Perry, a 12-time PGA Tour winner, said this week.

"I'm ready to play. And if it doesn't go my way, I can live with that. I can lay my head on that pillow at night and sleep good. But if it goes the way I think it can, it'll be the neatest week of my life."

There is a growing suspicion, fueled by Azinger's hints, that Perry and Holmes will be the first American team on the tee at 8 a.m. Friday when the golf finally starts.

Perry has asked for it, Holmes wants it and Azinger may make it happen. It would be a calculated risk, one designed to deliver on two fronts -- provide the Americans with a quick start against the likely European power pairing of Sergio Garcia and Lee Westwood while setting off the Kentucky gallery as the coffee's still brewing.

They are an odd couple. Perry is 22 years older than Holmes and no two styles are more different than theirs. Perry plays golf the old-fashioned way, hitting fairways and greens. Holmes plays golf with a sledgehammer.

Players swap stories about Holmes' length off the tee the way Bigfoot stories used to be told.

"There's never been anything like it," Azinger said.

Though they are separated by generations, Perry said they are bound by "similar raisings. We understand each other."

Like bourbon, thoroughbreds and Adolph Rupp, it's a Kentucky thing.

Given the seemingly unsolvable Ryder Cup puzzle that has flummoxed the Americans for so long, it would be understandable if Azinger goes for the big bang immediately.

"That would be awesome," said Holmes, who has the unusual habit of a wearing a black rain glove when he plays rather than a traditional white golf glove.

Though Perry and Holmes combined lack the star power and career achievements of either Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson, their potential pairing has drawn comparisons to the famously unsuccessful teaming of Woods and Mickelson four years ago.

"It's a match that America wants to see, I suppose, a bit like Phil and Tiger in Detroit," Europe's Lee Westwood said.

"It can be very successful and get the crowd on your side or it can go the way it did at Detroit."

For Perry, who spends some of his down time working behind the counter at Country Creek, the course ($28 for 18 holes with a cart) he built for the farmers and friends around Franklin, this is where golf has brought him.

He has taken time to sign autographs during his practice rounds this week. He has looked at the golf world in his backyard and smiled. He has thanked the people who have sent extra Ryder Cup tickets to his course so he can give them to friends.

Other players build their schedules and careers around major championships. Perry, in his professional twilight, built his around this week.

Close to home. Close to his heart.