Why we really love to ‘hate’ Team USA
MUTUAL respect. A transatlantic fellowship that will survive any circumstance, transcend all petty squabbles.
An inherent sense of gentlemanly decency that pervades not only the game itself, but also its most high-profile exponents.
What a crock of merde. It is enough to give any proper sports fan the dry heave.
If you do not feel the bile rising, try reading those opening few sentences again while listening to the kind of schmaltzy background music so beloved of golf broadcasters.
Add in some classic Jim Nantz — a man who represents both the best and the most sickeningly saccharine of US sportscasting — as he muses over how the World War Two veteran grandfather of one of the American players would be proud of him pulling on the ‘uniform’ of his country.
Anyone who does not feel a little queasy after all of that should be fast-tracked through the astronaut programme, without any need to prove their mettle on the infamous zero-G ‘vomit comet’.
Because there is a disorientating truth at the heart of the Ryder Cup. One that the blue-chip sponsors seem awfully keen to overlook.
It is one of the world’s great sporting events because, ultimately, it is about rivalry. Red in tooth and claw.
We do not like them. They do not like us. Daft, isn’t it?
Especially when you consider the personal popularity of so many American golfers as individuals.
Yet it is impossible to deny the sentiments once rather rashly expressed in public by Team Europe stalwart Paul Casey.
He famously said of the Yanks: ‘We properly hate them. We wanted to beat them as badly as possible.’
As Casey later admitted, ‘hate’ was too strong a word to use, even in a sporting context.
However, as soon as these guys ‘suit up’ for this contest, tribalism trumps all.
This time around, it is not hard to explain why.
Honestly, have you seen some of the arrogant clickbait claptrap that has been spouted by our partners in the special relationship recently?
Like one attention-seeking ‘expert’ infamously declaring the Ryder Cup over as a contest for the foreseeable future because the Americans are just so darned all-powerful.
Given the crass nature of certain predictions, there is only one proper response.
Organisers still have time to switch the music for tomorrow’s opening ceremony. And replace the planned programme with an endless loop of The Clash roaring: I’m So Bored with the USA.
It is almost irresistible, this urge to snap back at the overbearing Americans with a polite — okay, not always polite — request that they wind their necks in.
Blame some of the antipathy on the least endearing chant in sports. You know the one.
There can be no more stirring sound than the letters ‘U-S-A’ repeated until, as some visiting fans might put it, you want to puke your surrender-loving European guts out. Ya bunch of cheese-eating liberals.
If their swagger is backed up by a first win on European soil since 1993, they will be unbearable. Absolutely unbearable.
Jim Furyk’s men are favourites with the bookies, of course, and their odds shortened further with the return to winning ways of one Tiger Woods.
So, yeah, they’ve got the greatest of all time looking like his old self. We can only hope his old apathy towards the Ryder Cup has been rekindled, too.
If Thomas Bjorn and his men get blinded by the razzle-dazzle of the visiting group, with their multiple major winners, they will be up against it.
But consider this. Phil Mickelson is ranked 192nd on the PGA Tour when it comes to accuracy off the tee. At a course where you need to find the fairways, the famously flaky Phil may quickly be found out.
And what happens to team spirit if Furyk decides to drop good old Lefty? Just ask Tom Watson.
After Europe’s blow-out win at Gleneagles four years ago, the Americans regrouped — against a bad captain in Darren Clarke — with a thumping victory of their own at Hazeltine.
Usually, this contest is a much closer affair. Expect that this week. Probably.
As for those promises of long-term domination, well, maybe America will find a way to do that.
And certainly, if Furyk is struggling to motivate his ‘troops’ to come from behind on Saturday night, who is to say he will not turn to Mr President for inspiration?
Back at Brookline in 1999, the Americans were moved to tears when the then Governor of Texas, George W Bush, delivered a speech about the Alamo.
Imagine Donald Trump doing the same. Oh, please make it happen. And somebody film it.
That would keep the enmity that drives this contest, the animosity without which the Ryder Cup would be just another tournament, fully charged for a good century or more.