Azinger's 13th Man Brings U.S. the Ryder Cup

Before the Ryder Cup in Louisville this week, Paul Azinger the captain of team USA made it expressly clear that he wanted the crowds to play a major factor in the outcome of the tournament:

"I want to treat them like they're going to be our 13th man," Azinger said.

It comes as no surprise then that a large amount of the post-tournament analysis has centered around the impact the crowds made on the match up. Paul Mahoney of Golf.com and contributor to Golf Magazine writes:

They'll never get credit in the history books, but it was Paul Azinger's 13th Man, all 40,000 of them, who won the 37th Ryder Cup for the United States. Captain America's two-year plan to fire up his players and the Kentucky crowd worked.

So when Golf.com was looking for a picture from Sunday's final round at Valhalla that summed up the contribution of the 13th man, they needed something that was really representative of the crowds intensity. So where did they turn? Well look at the picture in the upper left hand corner closely, where you will find my dad perfectly executing a back handed, off balance high five to 22 year old phenom Anthony Kim.

When I interviewed my dad for this piece, he humbly refused, simply saying that he was just glad to be pretty much the most integral part of the U.S. victory. Yesterday, he was a retired football coach. Today, he's the poster boy for Azinger's 13th Man.

Access the entire story here, complete with above picture heading the article. Look really close and you can see my hand barely creeping into the right side of the picture.