Americans to do some soul-searching
Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines – Heartbroken United States golf stars will go back to the drawing board in search of their first Ryder Cup win in Europe since 1993 after a resounding 17.5-10.5 defeat Sunday.
The American squad, featuring 11 of the world’s 17 top-ranked players, lost seven of the last eight singles matches at Le Golf National in their worst defeat since 2006.
Now it will be 2022 in Rome before the US team can end its away drought.
“Obviously there’s a sour taste in our mouth to come over here now for 27 years and not be able to win on foreign soil,” US captain Jim Furyk said.
“That’s the goal. We want to be successful in this event. We want to grow and we want to get better, but we want to do it here in Europe. That will be the goal.
“We’ll regroup and I’ll definitely go through some things in my head and we’ll move forward.”
The US Ryder Cup task force assembled after a 2014 flop at Gleneagles, which helped the Americans win 17-11 at Hazeltine in 2016, will take lessons to produce a better result in 2020 on home soil at Whistling Straits.
“I’ll work with the PGA of America and our Ryder Cup committee and I think we’ll keep improving. We’ll keep growing,” Furyk said. “We didn’t have the success we wanted, but I felt like we made some strides in areas this year, and I’ll help our captain in 2020 and I’ll help him get better as well.”
A team with nine Major champions who have won a combined 31 major titles, including 14-time Major winner Tiger Woods, was humbled by a European side that has won nine of the past 12 events.
“The European side played some exquisite golf,” 12-time US Ryder Cupper Phil Mickelson said. “It was some phenomenal golf, and they flat-out beat us.”
Furyk took the heat for the loss, saying: “Thomas was a better captain and their team outplayed us. He put his guys in a good position. He did a good job.”
Furyk wasn’t taking fatigue or an unknown course as excuses.
“We were prepared. I feel like we played our practice rounds and we understood the golf course. We just got outplayed,” Furyk said. –