Ryder Cup looks little more than a consolation for Europe’s failures

Do Europe’s golfers make such a big deal about winning the Ryder Cup because they don’t have much else of significance to celebrate?

Scottie Scheffler’s Masters victory leaves the US in possession of all four Majors. 2014 was the last year with more than one European Major victory. The score since then is 20-6 to the Americans. The Players Championship, the ‘fifth Major’, has had just one European win in the last ten years.

It’s a big change. Martin Kaymer’s US Open win and Rory McIlroy’s British Open and USPGA victories in 2014 rounded off a golden five-year spell when Europe outscored their rivals 9-7.

The Euro slump has continued despite LIV Golf largely removing Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Bryson de Chambeau, Phil Mickelson and Patrick Reed, who’d won 10 of the 23 Majors from 2016 to 2021, from contention.

McIlroy’s Major drought since 2014 seems symptomatic of European failure. At the Irishman’s peak the Ryder Cup seemed a low priority. Only recently has he been reinvented as Captain Europe, bursting into tears, bollocking caddies and so on.

Scheffler, on the other hand, took just one point from a possible four in last year’s Ryder Cup.

The world’s best player is hardly bothered.