The final putt had dropped into the cup on the final green. After three days of golfing intensity, the Ryder Cup had finally come to its decisive conclusion. Although the two teams seemed pretty close to equal on paper, the game is definitely not played on paper. In the end, it was a resounding victory coupled with a demoralizing defeat.
The two-time major champion, the acknowledged leader of the losing team, had this assessment of the Ryder Cup matches. He said, “We stumbled through the closing holes of many winnable matches. Our short games let us down. On the other hand, they were demons around the greens. They had the killer instinct.”
It was way back in October of 1967 that Englishman Tony Jacklin made these comments after he and his squad from Great Britain and Ireland were soundly trounced by Team USA at the Champions Golf Club in Houston. Well before that 17th Ryder Cup and well beyond it, Jacklin”s comments are pertinent to every Ryder Cup that has been played. You can”t afford to lose holes late in close matches. Short game brilliance, such as Martin Kaymer”s eagle chip-in to win his Sunday singles match, is without a doubt the winning ticket.
And so another Ryder Cup is in the history books. The European team prevailed over the American squad by a 16? to 11? margin of victory, a pretty decisive total by Ryder Cup standards. The European team had many heroes to acknowledge, including the aforementioned Kaymer, Rory McIlroy, Graeme McDowell, Sergio Garcia, Justin Rose and Henrik Stenson. They won the cup handily and didn”t even need Ian Poulter to perform at the super high level he did in past Ryder Cup matches.
Ryder Cup rookie Jamie Donaldson added the final icing on the victory cake. He knocked a full pitching wedge to within mere inches during his Sunday individual match to clinch the cup for Team Europe. If he hadn”t hit that wedge to kick-in range, then someone else on the European team would have hit the clinching shot or putt shortly thereafter. It was that big a rout on Sunday afternoon in Scotland.
The American squad was a tale of two generations. The three rookies, Patrick Reed, Jordan Spieth and Jimmy Walker, were the highlights for Team America. Reed and Spieth teamed up and had two wins and a tie on Friday and Saturday. Walker partnered up with 20-something Rickie Fowler against several duos of European heavyweights and they earned three ties, two of them coming against world No. 1 Rory McIlory. Yet Team USA highlights were few and far between when you got beyond the newbies. As television analyst and two-time major champion Johnny Miller stated at the conclusion of the singles matches on Sunday, “The young guys have got to figure out how to win these things because the older guys obviously don”t.” Miller”s words ran true although they were a stirring indictment of the poor play by the American squad during the past 19 years. This Ryder Cup could be the final time around for the likes of Phil Mickelson, Jim Furyk and the often injured Tiger Woods.
Speaking of Mickelson, he may never make a future Ryder Cup team as a captain”s pick in light of his post-round comments. In what seemed like a poorly timed bitch session, Mickelson threw Ryder Cup captain Tom Watson under the proverbial bus, whining that Watson didn”t involve the players in the decision making in the same way Paul Azinger did in 2008. That 2008 Ryder Cup team was the last one to win the cup. However, something tells me that the Americans won in Valhalla back in ”08 because of their golf, not because of some pseudo-democracy, feel-good moment in the team room.
If we attempt to get away from the emotions of the losing American team, the proof is right there on the scorecard. During the team matches on Friday and Saturday, the Euros were a combined 60-under-par. Team USA was 43-under-par. The European squad won seven of the eight foursomes (alternate shot) matches during that two-day period and tied the other one. Seems like the Europeans played much better golf than the American team. Plus, if we”re going to talk about team unity, the frosty business relationship and legal issues that have put McIlroy and McDowell on opposite ends didn”t seem to hurt the unity of the Euros.
It was more of the same for the 12 individual matches Sunday. The Americans had to make up a 10-6 deficit, which meant they had to acquire at least 8? points to bring back the cup. They could only muster 5? points instead. During those decisive final matches, the Europeans were a combined 50-under-par. The USA team was 35-under-par. While I am very aware that the Ruder Cup is contested at match play, I do believe finishing a combined 32 strokes ahead of your opponent will get you a fair share of winning holes, a fair share of winning matches.
Future American success in the Ryder Cup is wholly dependent upon weeding out just about everyone older than 30 and sending Reed, Spieth and Fowler out into the matches with their contemporaries such as Chris Kirk, Billy Horschel, Ryan Palmer, Morgan Hoffman and others. The Tiger Woods generation is 2-8 in the Ryder Cup during the past 21 years. Jim Furyk is America”s version of Christy O”Connor. They make a lot of teams, they lose a lot of matches.
So we”ve got two more years before the Ryder Cup starts up again at Hazeltine on this side of the ocean. There will be lots of hand-wringing over the next few months as the PGA of America analyzes Team USA”s latest defeat. Perhaps they”ll look even farther in the past and get Arnold Palmer to captain the 2016 team. After all, he did a pretty good job as captain in 1963 and 1975. Then again, since when does a winning golf team have to rely upon a captain or a coach to find them victory lane? The golfers are the ones solely responsible for the end result.
The Euros won the 2014 Ryder Cup matches. As Tony Jacklin said some 47 years ago, they had the killer instinct. And regardless of the finger pointing, it was once again golf”s most dramatic three days of team golf.
