RYDER CUP CHEMISTRY TEST: EUROPE A, AMERICANS F
US players are not a band of brothers as the harder they try to manufacture a connection, the more spectacularly they fail, writes Karen Crouse
Tommy Fleetwood sat at one end of the dais on Sunday night and blew kisses across the table to Francesco Molinari, who emerged, with Fleetwood’s help, as the leading man in Europe’s Ryder Cup victory against the United States. Molinari, who sealed his 5-0 record with a 4 and 2 victory against Phil Mickelson in the singles, was fielding a question about becoming a folk hero after following his victory in July’s British Open with his star turn here.
Molinari, whose expressionless manner was made fun of in a pre-competition team video, said with his usual poker face in place that statistically, he stood “a good chance of winning some points.”
Before he could continue, Fleetwood leaned into his microphone and said: “You’re so arrogant. Get over yourself.”
Led by Fleetwood, the European players all had a good chuckle, and not just because Molinari is about as modest as major winners come. The group of players that carved out a 17.5-10.5 victory at Le Golf National in France truly seemed to enjoy one another’s company.
A connection seeded in a social media group chat several weeks ago blossomed into a camaraderie that Northern Irishman Rory McIlroy credited with the team’s success.
Because of how well they all got along, he said, the players could be mixed and matched like interchangeable parts in the foursomes and four-ball matches, where they built a 10-6 lead in the first two days.
“It gave us a lot of options,” McIlroy said. And then there are the Americans. There are myriad reasons the United States lost their sixth straight Ryder Cup on foreign soil, a streak of futility that started after the 1993 victory at the Belfry when Bryson DeChambeau, the youngest member of this year’s team, was 10 days old.
Of captain Jim Furyk’s four wild-card picks, only Tony Finau (2-1) finished with a winning record. The others — DeChambeau, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson — lost all their matches.
The narrow fairways favoured players who are straight off the tee, and six of the 12 Americans were ranked in the bottom 50 in the PGA Tour stat for driving accuracy (where Henrik Stenson of Europe finished first).
In the end, though, the United States lost despite parading out an all-star team that included nine players who have won majors, for the same reason as ever: The Americans are not a band of brothers.
In 2014, after another loss on foreign soil, Mickelson disparaged Tom Watson’s my-way-or-the-highway leadership, leading to a rule-by-committee approach.
But the harder the Americans try to manufacture a connection, a cohesion, the more spectacularly they fail.
The fellowship that the American team sought to create by papering its team room with inspirational sayings like “Leave your egos at the door” didn’t take this time. And at the Americans’ losing news conference, the fissure that had existed all along nearly broke wide open.
The last question in the glum post-mortem was directed at Jordan Spieth and Patrick Reed. They were asked about not being paired despite compiling a 4-1-2 record together in two previous Cups.
Like Molinari and Fleetwood, Spieth and Reed sat on opposite ends of the dais, but there was no frivolity — and certainly no blowing of kisses. Their eyes met, and Spieth read something in Reed’s expression that prompted him to jump on the answer.
“We were totally involved in every decision that was made,” Spieth said, adding, “Jim allowed it to be a player-friendly environment.”
Reed was seated at the far end of the table, directly next to Woods, with whom he had been