Steve Stricker had been on the opposite end of a phone line with a U.S. Ryder Cup captain before.

So this time, after being passed over so many times, the Madison golfer requested an answer from U.S. captain Paul Azinger even before he said 'Hello.'

"It was relief," said Stricker, who found out he'd made his first Ryder Cup team Monday and was officially selected along with Hunter Mahan, J.B. Holmes and Chad Campbell as one of four captain's picks at a Tuesday morning news conference in New York.

"My gut was telling me I was going to be one of the picks, but you just never know," Stricker said. "l hadn't heard or talked to Paul except at the PGA (Championship) and he just said, 'Don't worry about.' But I'm very excited and looking forward to it."

Stricker will join Madison's Andy North (1985) as the only Wisconsin natives to play on a Ryder Cup team. Johnny Revolta (1935, '37), born in St. Louis, played in the event when he lived and worked as a pro in Wisconsin.

Stricker was knocked out of one of the eight automatic Ryder Cup berths by Ben Curtis at the PGA. As the next man in line, Stricker was considered almost a lock to participate in the 37th biannual matches, to be held Sept. 18 to 21 at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Ky.

Azinger confirmed Tuesday that he decided Stricker was going to be a pick following the PGA even though he did not tell him until Monday.

"To me, it's almost more pressure if you say, 'Listen, I'm picking you no matter what,''' Azinger said. "Then what does a guy feel when he's out there shooting a big score? So I didn't want to do that to Steve. I knew he was sweating bullets. I had a couple friends from the media call me and say, 'I don't know if you're picking Stricker or not, but the guy's staring at the Coke machine like he thinks it's going to turn into something else.'"

Stricker, 41, said he was glad Azinger made that choice.

"It made me focus and stay committed to what I was going to do and keep playing and working on making the team," said Stricker, who has a 5-5 record on two Presidents Cup teams (1996, 2007).

After a three-year slump from '03 to '05, Stricker has climbed back to prominence in the past three years.

Ranked as high as third in the world earlier this season, the two-time PGA Tour Comeback Player of the Year wasn't thinking about the Ryder Cup when he was beating balls out of a trailer in the middle of winter at Cherokee Country Club in an attempt to regain his full-time playing status on the PGA Tour.

"No, it wasn't even on my radar," Stricker said. "But in this game, things can change in a hurry. You keep plugging away and you have determination and willpower to try to stay in it, and overcome some of the difficulties of the game, then good things can happen. I dug down a little deeper and good things started to happen."

Stricker captured his fourth career PGA Tour victory at The Barclays last fall, then picked up where he left off with four top-10 finishes in his first seven events of 2008.

After a rough spring stretch — which included five missed cuts in six events — Stricker has made seven straight cuts and ranks 13th in the Fed Ex Cup standings with one or two events left. The top 30 players qualify for the season-ending Tour Championship.

Indeed, the Edgerton native has come a long way in golf, from State Amateur and State Open titles to PGA Tour crowns to a Ryder Cup berth.

"(The Ryder Cup) is right up there with anything I've ever done in golf," Stricker said. "This is truly an honor."