Opening day at the 39th Ryder Cup didn’t go well for Team Europe on Friday, but the gang that won four of the last five competitions did win one battle.

The two captain’s picks made by European captain Jose Maria Olazabal were twice as productive as the four captain’s picks made by U.S. captain Davis Love III.

Different selection methods were used to decide the rosters of the two teams. The top five on the European PGA Tour were automatic picks for Olazabal as were the next top five (not counting those players) in the world rankings.

So, all that Olazabal had to pick were England’s Ian Poulter and Belgium’s Nicolas Colsaerts, and both of them played big roles in taking down Tiger Woods on Thursday.

Poulter and fellow Englander Justin Rose took care of Woods and his long-time partner Steve Stricker 2-1 in the morning foursomes and Colsaerts did almost all the work himself when he paired with Lee Westwood for a 1-up win in the last four-ball match of the afternoon.

Europe trails after Day 1 by a 5-3 margin, but its captain’s picks went 2-0. By comparison Love’s four choices – Dustin Johnson, Stricker, Brandt Snedeker and Jim Furyk were a combined 1-4.

Poulter may not have earned an automatic berth on the team, but he may just as well have been one because he was an obvious choice for Olazabal. In three previous Ryder Cups Poulter was a star for Europe, posting an 8-3-0 record, and he was the only player with top-10 finishes in three of the year’s four major championships.

Two of Poulter’s three Ryder Cup losses came when Woods was an opponent. This time, though, Poulter holed a bunker shot and made a critical five-foot par save as he and Rose never trailed.

Colsaerts, 29, earned his captain’s pick with a strong finish to a season that included a title in the Volvo World Match Play tourney. One of the longest hitters in Europe, he is the first player from Belgium to play in the Ryder Cup, and his debut may well be the most spectacular in the event’s history. He was 10-under-par on his own ball, making eight birdies and an eagle.

“I don’t know what to say,’’ said Colsaerts. “When I was a kid I dreamed of being in this tournament, and it felt wonderful to produce on such a big stage.’’

“I had the best seat in the house to watch it,’’ said Westwood, long one of Europe’s best Ryder Cuppers. “His round was a joy to watch. I didn’t really have a lot to do. Everything he looked at went in.’’

Colsaerts’ biggest putt was a clutch 25-footer with a two-foot break for birdie at No. 17. The Euros needed it with Woods’ coin marker sitting three feet from the cup for the birdie that could have evened the match had Colsaerts missed.

While Olazabal made good captain’s picks, he didn’t make full use of them Thursday. Poulter played only in the morning and Colsaerts only in the afternoon.

“Ollie (Olazabal) really wanted to get everybody playing on Friday, so four guys had to change after the morning round,’’ said Poulter. “I realize we’re a team, and that team is very, very, very strong this year. He said he would like to keep me fresh for Saturday and Sunday.’’

Pittsburgh’s Nathan Smith made U.S. golf history Thursday en route to earning another coveted invitation to next April’s Masters tournament.

Smith became the first four-time winner of the U.S. Mid-Amateur – the national championship for players 25 and over — with a tense victory over Canadian Garrett Rank in the 36-hole final at Conway Farms, in Lake Forest.

“I gutted it out. I don’t know how I did it,’’ said Smith. “It’s pretty surreal to do something that no one else has done.’’

Rank, who hoped to become the 32-year-old tourney’s youngest champion and first foreign winner, found himself 3-down twice before winning three straight holes to pull even on the 33rd.

Two holes later, however, the match swung to Smith for good when Rank stubbed a difficult chip shot from green-side rough. Rank, who turned 25 three days before the tournament, had already conceded Smith a par putt when his chip rolled past the cup and down a steep slope on the green. He was left with a 30-foot putt to halve the hole but couldn’t get it to drop.

“It was a bad chip,’’ said Rank, who works as a referee in the Ontario Hockey League. “My lie was dicey, but I had momentum and was feeling good so I went for it.’’

Both players parred No. 18, Rank missing a 15-footer that would have sent the match to extra holes.

Smith became the 16th player to win the same U.S. Golf Assn. national championship four times. His other wins were in 2003, 2009 and 2010, but Thursday’s was the most difficult.

His first title came after his opponent in the finals withdrew because of injury and Smith was 7-up in his other two title matches when his foe was closed out. His latest win broke a tie with another Pennsylvania golfer, Jay Sigel, who won the Mid-Am three times between 1983 and 1987.

No golfer in the 32-year history of the U.S. Mid-Amateur has won the tournament four times. Nathan Smith could be the first to do it today at Conway Farms, in Lake Forest.

Smith, from Pittsburgh, won the national championship for amateurs 25 and over in 2003, 2009 and 2010. He advanced to another final with a 3 and 1 win over Tim Jackson, of Germantown, Tenn., on Wednesday.

Only Canadian Garrett Rank stands in the way of Smith breaking a tie with Jay Sigel, who won three times between 1983 and 1987. Rank and Smith will determine the champion in a 36-hole match that begins at 7 a.m.

Rank, who reached the final with a 1-up victory over South Carolina history teacher Todd White in Wednesday’s semifinals, will be playing for some history, too. He could be the youngest player to win the Mid-Am as well as the first foreign player to do it. Rank turned 25, and eligible for the tourney, three days before this year’s championship started.

Smith, who was the youngest champion when he won his first title as a 25-year-old in 2003, has a 36-4 record in the tourney over the years as he goes after his fourth title.

“Doing it would be unbelievable,’’ said Smith. “But I’m a long way from that. This has been a fun event, and I’ve enjoyed playing it over the years. It means a lot to me just because I care so much about amateur golf. It’s about as pure as it gets.’’

“I’m disappointed,’’ said Jackson, the champion in 1994 and 2001, “but Nathan’s probably the best Mid-Am golfer going these days. I knew beating him would be a tall order.’’

This year’s Mid-Am started with 3,810 entries nation-wide and 264 qualified for the finals that began on Saturday at Conway Farms and Lake Forest neighbor Knollwood Club.

Last of the players with Chicago connections – Dennis Bull (Illinois State alum) and Matthew Mattare (Notre Dame) — bowed out in Wednesday morning’s quarterfinals. So did Californian Casey Boynes, at 56 the oldest qualifier for the finals.

CARMEL, Ind. – Sunday’s wrapup to the BMW Championship didn’t bode well for the U.S. team’s chances in the upcoming Ryder Cup matches at Medinah.

Two members of the European Ryder Cup team, Rory McIlroy and Lee Westwood, played together in the next-to-the-last twosome and finished at the top of the leaderboard with McIlroy reinforcing his status as the world’s No. 1 golfer.

Winning his second straight event of the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup playoffs, he shot four rounds in the 60s en route to posting a 20-under-par 268 for the 72 holes. Despite a bogey on the last hole he had a two-stroke cushion on Westwood and American Ryder Cupper Phil Mickelson, who started the last 18 tied for the lead with Vijay Singh.

McIlroy, 23, from Northern Ireland, notched his third win in his last four starts. The stretch started with a title at the year’s last major – the PGA Championship at Kiawah Island, S.C., and he also won last week at the Deutsche Bank Championship in Boston. The made him the fourth player to win two FedEx Cup playoff events in the same year, the others being Tiger Woods in 2007 and Singh and Camilo Villegas in 2008. In the last two weeks McIlroy is 40 under par for eight rounds.

“I’m just on a great run at the moment,’’ said McIlroy. `I’m playing well, I’m confident. I just hope to keep it going.’’

He’ll have the chance to claim the FedEx Cup and the $10 million bonus in two weeks at The Tour Championship in Atlanta. Then comes the Ryder Cup matches, the biennial team event that highlights the season.

“If (McIlroy) needs a partner, I don’t mind,’’ quipped Westwood, who was a world No. 1-ranked player before McIlroy. “He’s a talent. I played with him when he was 13, and you could see it then. He’s just maturing all the time. And he’s a very, very good player.’’

McIlroy shot 67, Westwood 69, Mickelson 70 and Singh 73 with the title on the line.

“My timing was just a fraction off,’’ said Mickelson, who made 10 birdies en route to posting a 64 in the third round. “I wasn’t quite getting the ball on line with my irons and my putter was just a little bit off . But I’m really pleased with the way my game has come around the last two weeks.’’

As far as the playoffs are concerned, the new top five in the point standings — McIlroy, Woods, Nick Watney, Mickelson and Brandt Snedeker – all can win the Cup with a win at Atlanta. Woods tied for fourth Sunday with fellow American long ball hitter Robert Garrigus after losing his touch on Crooked Stick’s par-5s. He played them in 9-under over the first three rounds but settled for four pars on the long holes on Sunday.

Bill Haas, who won the FedEx Cup last year, wasn’t among the 30 who qualified for Atlanta. Neither were D.A. Points and Mark Wilson, the last Chicago players left in the playoffs.

MARION, IL. – The college players’ domination of the Illinois State Amateur golf tournament is over.

Collegians had won eight straight times until Glenview’s Quinn Prchal came through with rounds of 66-69 on Thursday at The Links at Kokopelli to notch a two-stroke victory over Derek Meinhart of Mattoon. Prchal went through the three-day 72-hole test in 8-under-par 272.

A recent Glenbrook South graduate, Prchal hasn’t played a college event yet, but it won’t be long. He’ll play in his last junior event next week in Greensboro, N.C., then is off to Princeton University for the start of his freshman year.

Prchal, 18, didn’t qualify for either the Illinois Open or U.S. Amateur and hadn’t won a tournament since a December junior event in Florida. He wasn’t completely surprised by his breakthrough in his first appearance in the 82nd annual State Am, however.

“I just followed my routine and hit a lot of fairways and greens and made a number of short putts,’’ said Prchal, who tied for fourth in the Class 3A high school tourney in the fall.

The last non-collegian to win the Illinois Am was Bloomgton’s Todd Mitchell, who took back-to-back titles in 2002 and 2003. He tied for third Thursday after leading the tournament through 36 holes and starting fast on Thursday. He made three birdies in his first five holes.

“Then it vanished,’’ said Mitchell, “but I’ve got to hand it to (Prchal). He was 5-under today, and that’s playing very, very well.’’

Prchal, who plans to study engineering at Princeton, isn’t committing to a career in golf despite the promise he showed at Kokopelli, the southern-most location ever for the championship.

“I plan to play all four years in college and should be able to gauge my play then,’’ said Prchal, who plays most of his golf at the Glenview Park District course and The Glen Club in Glenview and has worked with veteran teaching pro Ed Oldfield Sr. for the last seven years at the nearby Willowhill nine-holer.

Not even the closest pursuer to Prchal was a collegian. Runner-up Meinhart, 34, completed his sixth State Am. The vice president of Innovative Staff Solutions, he qualified for the U.S. Mid-Amateur in 2008, 2010 and 2011. Mitchell has also focused on the Mid-Am, which brings its 2012 finals to Conway Farms in Lake Forest next month.

Mitchell shared third with Frankfort’s Brian Bullington, who was trying to become the third straight Illinois Amateur winner off the University of Iowa golf team.

The men’s Illinois Open is limited to in-state residents, the women’s version isn’t. The impact of that was clearly evident in Friday’s final round of the Phil Kosin Illinois Women’s Open at Mistwood in Romeoville.

For the first time in the tourney’s 18 stagings the title was decided in a playoff with Michigan amateur Samantha Troyanovich claiming the title with a birdie on the first hole.. Her victims in sudden death were Lauren Mielbrecht, the low pro from Gulf Stream, FL., and amateur Samantha Postillion, who grew up in Burr Ridge but is now living in Arizona. Only Flossmoor’s Ashley Armstrong cracked the top five among present Chicago players.

Postillion’s mother Kerry is the IWO’s only three-time champion, and Samantha contended for the first time after finished back in the pack for several years.

“I knew I was right there. I was going right at the pins the last five holes,’’ said Postillion, who will transfer from Scottdale Community College in Arizona to Illinois in the fall. “My mom’s name is on the trophy three times; that’s always been in the back of my mind when I’ve played here. I’ve always wanted a chance to win.’’

She had it this time, and joined Troyanovich in posting the low rounds of the 54-hole tournament. Both shot 3-under-par 69s en route to their 1-under 215 totals in regulation play.

Troyanovich and Mielbrecht were playing the IWO for the first time, and Mielbrecht picked up $5,000 for being low pro from a tourney-record purse of $25,000. Mielbrecht, who made four birdies in the first seven holes to take the outright lead, lipped out an eight-foot birdie putt on the 18th green that would have given her the title.

In sudden death, played on Mistwood’s re-designed 506-yard par-5 third hole, it was all Troyanovich. She not only hit the longest drive, she wound up with a beneficial lie. Though her ball was in the rough, her stance necessitated her standing on a sprinkler head. She was given a free drop that put her ball on the fairway.

From there she hit a hybrid to 25 yards of the green, chipped to 3 ½ feet and holed the birdie putt for her first-ever tournament victory. Mielbrecht and Postillion made pars.

The victory ended Troyanovich’s season. Though she’s used up her collegiate eligibility at Tulane, she will return to that school to complete work on her Master’s degree before making a decision on whether or not to enter the pro golf ranks.

Troyanovich’s playing partner in the final round, Notre Dame sophomore Armstrong, had five birdies in a front-nine 32. She joined Symetra Tour player Brittany Johnston in finishing one stroke out of the playoff.