Embarrassing Ryder Cup loss leaves Americans red-faced
Well, American golf fans, there's a bright side. At least we got to see what Phil Mickelson looks like in fire engine red slacks.
I'm sure Europe enjoyed beating those very same pants off Team USA in yet another Ryder Cup thrashing.
Said Team Europe to the downcast Americans, as they crossed the pond west after yet another defeat:
We just litigated your butts back home.
Yes, things seemed so bright and cheery and hopeful back when Lefty made his – admittedly, pretty funny – crack about how Team USA "doesn't litigate against each other, which is a big plus." His reference to the Rory McIlroy/Graeme McDowell sports agency lawsuit was amusing at the time; not so funny when Rors and GMac were giving each other shoulder noogies and the super-secret Northern Irish victory handshake after posting the first two Sunday singles wins, setting off the blue avalanche at Gleneagles in Scotland.
Things were so giddy for Team Europe, they even enjoyed the laughter of premature champagne-ization. Rory got caught popping a cork greenside when Zach Johnson was still studying his final putt on the 18th green of his halved match with Victor Dubuisson. It was symbolic: In many ways, this thing was over before it started.
Team Europe was a two-touchdown favorite coming in, had four of the top six players in the world and had no problem reminding the Americans they hadn't won on European soil since 1993. How long ago was that? So long ago, Patrick Reed was only 3 years old, and telling all the preschool media how he was one of the "Top Five" toddlers in the world.
Actually, we should pause a moment here to salute the stout and confident – dare we say cocky? yes, we dare do – Texan, Pat Reed. As the champagne fizz poured over Gleneagles Sunday night, and all the Ole/Ole/Oles rang out through a sixth European victory in the past seven Ryder Cups, Reed was probably looking around the American team room, brushing lint off his double XL red slacks and thinking: What's the problem with y'all? I got mine.
Reed was not only USA's best player with 3.5 points out of four, he also led the team in woofing. After a crucial putt in his Sunday win over Henrik Stenson, Reed got all up in the European crowd's face, putting his index finger to his lips and shaking his head. It was part Barry Bonds, part Sergio Garcia and if you found it distasteful, well, hell, Pat Reed's just out here trying to win a point for the good ol' U.S. of A.
He did a great job of it, too, and was easily USA's MVP. He and young Jordan Spieth (2.5 points out of 4), and Jimmy Walker (2.5 points out of 5) were the rookies who came to play. As for their veteran teammates, like Jim Furyk (1 point out of 4), Matt Kuchar (1 point out of 4), Zach Johnson (1/2 point out of 3) and especially Bubba (Mail It In) Watson – zero points out of a possible 3? Not so much. Team USA might be much better off de-emphasizing those guys. Instead, look to Reed/Spieth/Walker, add in a Billy Horschel and you have a starting infield for 2016's match at Hazeltine, with a faint whiff of hope.
Europe did everything right. They rallied around their likable captain, the inoffensive Irishman Paul McGinley. They turned what used to be an American strength – alternate shot – and flipped the script, going 7-1 on Friday and Saturday to show they had more chemistry and desire to finish the job after the U.S. landed some early momentum in both morning sessions. They also were smart enough to bring along the best player on the planet, Rory McIlroy (3 points out of a possible 5) and maybe the second-player on the planet, Justin Rose (4 points out of a possible 5). The U.S. used to bring the best player on the planet to the Ryder Cup all the time. It's just that Tiger Woods cared about the Ryder Cup about 1/10th as much as Rory McIlroy cares about the Ryder Cup.
The Europeans even looked better. Martin Kaymer and Graeme McDowell brought back some old-school style by going hatless on Sunday, reminding us of a day when a corporation wasn't plastered across every golfer's forehead. The ladies love GMac, so he wanted to give them as much GMac as he could.
Even their TV commentators outstyled us. Darren Clarke's enjoyable turn on NBC with Dan Hicks and Johnny Miller saw him clearly outpoint the Americans, his trimmed-down look including a stylish suit and fashionable beard. He looked like he was bucking for Daniel Craig's James Bond role, while reducing Hicks and Miller to extras.
Do the Europeans want it more? Almost certainly, yes. Are they more team-oriented than those individualistic Americans? Almost certainly, yes. Do the more soccer-styled, chanting European crowds put extra pep in Europe's step? Almost certainly, yes. Is this all part of the decline and fall of the American Empire? Pull up a chair and discuss.
Don't have much else for you, American golf fan. We Yanks have to wear it, just like a bright red pair of golf slacks.
SCORECARD OF THE WEEK
Justin Rose vs. Hunter Mahan, Match Halved. Sunday Singles, 2014 Ryder Cup, Gleneagles GC, Scotland.
I'd like you to meet Sean Foley's one-man reputation-saver, the very excellent Justin Rose. He may be ranked only sixth in the world, but there aren't five players on Earth you'd rather have playing for your side. That his swing coach happens to be the guy Tiger just fired makes it all sort of interesting, doesn't it?
Last year's U.S. Open win at Merion vaulted Rose to the next level, but truth told, he'd been doing outstanding work even prior to that. Since winning Jack Nicklaus' Memorial in 2010, he's won six times on the PGA Tour, including that U.S. Open in 2013, the FedExCup playoff BMW Championship in 2011 and the 2012 WGC-Cadillac Championship at Doral.
And anybody surprised at Rose leading Team Europe – even more productive than Rory, more productive than Henrik Stenson – shouldn't be. In 2012's Ryder Cup, when Team Europe took U.S. captain Davis Love III's heart and stomped their golf spikes right into it, it was Rose who delivered the fatal blow. Europe's comeback from 10-6 down that Sunday at Medinah is legendary, and Rose crafted the legend when he holed putts of 10, 35 (!) and 12 feet on the final three holes to zoom past Phil Mickelson and claim a 1-up win that stunned America.
It was blood-and-guts stuff from Rose, as competitive and feisty as anything you'd ever want to see – made more shocking by the fact that Rose has the innocuous look and manner of a character actor from "Downton Abbey".
At Gleneagles, Rose was at it again. His Saturday morning fourball win, along with Stenson, over a very game Bubba and Matt Kuchar saw Rose pour in seven birdies, teaming with Stenson for 10, in a studly 3-and-2 win, a match they trailed by two at one point. Sunday, he was back at it in perhaps the signature singles match of the day.
McGinley chose Rose to be his fourth player off, while Tom Watson answered with Hunter Mahan, a captain's pick who'd been a little shaky, and had some Ryder Cup scar tissue from 2010. Mahan, though, came out a house afire, making four early birdies for a 4-up lead.
Then here came Justin Juggernaut.
Rose made four consecutive birdies on holes 8 through 11 to square the match, one soul-crushing outstanding golf shot after another. Mahan was helpless. Rose then went for the coup de grace on No. 13, his tee shot in jail behind a significant shrub. Instead, he took a full swing and roped his golf ball through the junk, down the fairway, onto the green and it didn't feel like stopping until it was kick-in distance, two feet from the cup. The shot of the match, and Gleneagles went bananas. Rose doffed his cap, a maestro.
Even though Mahan went to 18 1-up, and regretfully bogeyed the hole to halve the match, Rose had done enough to mess with Team USA again.
Team USA's game plan for 2016 has to include one chapter on "How to Somehow Stop the Unstoppable Justin Rose."
BROADCAST MOMENT OF THE WEEK
"We had a great formula in '08. I don't know why we strayed from it. What 'Zinger did was a really great format. Maybe we should go back to that." – Phil Mickelson, to NBC's Steve Sands, after Team Europe's 16.5 to 11.5 win over Team USA in the Ryder Cup.
Shots fired!
Are you listening, captain-picking, decision-making PGA of America?
Leave it to outspoken Lefty to say what everyone was thinking.
The only American win in the 21st century came when Paul Azinger, a noted Ryder Cup enthusiast, brought together a 2008 team that had no Tiger Woods, but had plenty of moxie in a young Anthony Kim, a wacky Boo Weekley and a big-hitting J.B. Holmes, among others, to sting Europe at Valhalla, 16-11.
Azinger instituted his now-famous "pod system," in which he studied his players' games and personalities, and had them play in groups of four all week, breaking down a team-wide roster into smaller groups. It seemed to build cohesion and trust. When the USA delivered its big win, Zinger was hailed as a genius.
Of course, much of the win could have been attributed to the fact that Europe was captained by Nick Faldo, who ham-fistedly turned his team's battleship of talent into the S.S. Minnow. But that ruins the narrative.
The decision to not re-up Azinger in 2010 – or 2012, or 2014 – baffled many. Azinger appeared to be exactly what Team USA needed, born for the job. Instead, Corey Pavin failed to connect in 2010; Davis Love III oversaw a Sunday collapse in 2012; and Tom Watson appeared a little past his prime in 2014.
Back in Florida, Paul Azinger sits on a living room couch, staring at his cell phone. Will it ring?
MULLIGAN OF THE WEEK
In the end, even the Ryder Cup magic of Tom Watson proved feckless, and maybe even out of touch. In his heyday, Watson was a Ryder Cup magician. He went 10-4-1 as a player. And as a captain in 1993, he oversaw the last American win on European soil. That was back in the good old days, when guys like Ray Floyd, Tom Kite, Payne Stewart and Freddie Couples wouldn't rest until they'd hung some European pelts on the wall.
Watson knows the deal. You lose the Cup, you spend Monday morning reading Yahoo columns second-guessing your every move.
We can start with the captain's picks.
Keegan Bradley seems born for the Cup, and had a good one in 2012, but he hasn't won on Tour since 2012. His Friday morning win with Philly Mick over Sergio and Rory portended great things, but they flopped Friday afternoon, and then Keegan was roadkill for an unknown Welshman named Jamie Donaldson, 4 and 3, in the match that handed Europe the Cup. Ouch. Keegan, good Cupper on paper – not ready for 2014, as Cap'n Tom found out.
Webb Simpson played poorly in a Friday fourball loss with Bubba Watson, and never earned Watson's confidence back. He halved his match with Ian Poulter Sunday.
And Hunter Mahan, while playing some outstanding golf for much of Sunday's singles, has to wear the 18th hole bogey that saw him go from slaying Justin Rose to halving his match. Mahan has some bad Ryder Cup memories at this point in his career, and may begin a one-eye twitch if he ever sees a RYDER moving truck on an American freeway.
Watson will also likely rue sitting his star rookies, Jordan Spieth and Patrick Reed, Friday afternoon after their scintillating Friday morning win. By the end of the Cup, despite Spieth's tough loss to Graeme McDowell, one could argue that Spieth and Reed were the two most valuable Americans. Watson should have sensed that, and played the hot hand on Friday afternoon, when the U.S. lost its early momentum.
So, Cap'n Tom, for losing in your second home of Scotland, for failing to capitalize on early momentum, for captain's picks that did not click, we say to you, with great respect … give that man many captain's mulligans!
By the way, I've thought long and hard about what the answer should be for the next U.S. captain, and while we all respect Azinger's win and style, there seems to be only one answer:
Gregg Popovich.
Do the right thing, PGA of America. Even if it makes for awkward on-course interviews.
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
Time for me to put away my champagne-stained laptop, sports fans. After many years with the golden opportunity to comment, review and have a laugh or two on Sunday nights with you all, I am retiring Lateral Hazard, with a heavy heart.
Obligations beckon. 'Tis a world of obligations, dear reader.
Thanks so much to the wonderful editors at Yahoo through the years, in particular Mike Arkush, Joe Lago, Johnny Ludden and Cody Brunner. Your creative generosity can never be repaid.
I would like to extend deepest apologies to all the commenters who enjoy telling me to do physically impossible things on a weekly basis. I am robbing you of your chance to keep commenting. But thank you. Without your hate and bile, I would never have known just how unintelligent I am and how poorly I write. You won't have the Dick Nixon of golf columns to kick around anymore.
Haha! Come on! Lighten up! Concede a putt every now and then!
And to you faithful readers, thank you. I love writing about golf, and may return one day when the obligations in life lessen. It's a beautiful game, and a dream for a sportswriter to scribble about. Until the next European victory in the Ryder Cup, I bid you farewell. Fairways and greens, amigos. Fairways and greens.
