The Yanks are doing dandy but don’t discount Europe’s golfers

Patrick Reed is probably still hungover after his heart-stopping victory in the Augusta Masters, thanks to a miraculous putting display that underlined America’s current domination of world golf. It was a triumphant day for the Stars and Stripes, while the Europeans struggled. Northern Ireland’s former world number one Rory Mcilroy faded disappointingly in the closing stages.

Does European golf have a problem? Statistically, it appears so. There are four major championships: the Masters in April, the US Open in June, the Open Championship in July, and the PGA Championship in August. Yanks, including Reed, took the top three places at the Masters just gone, as well as six of the top 10. All four of the majors are now held by the US for the first time since 2004.

This question takes on greater significance in light of this September’s Ryder Cup at Versailles, when Americans and Europeans will line up in opposing teams. Americans have won nine of the past 13 majors and their Ryder Cup side will start as holders, convinced that they are on track for their first win in Europe and first back-toback victories for 25 years.

Cue widespread pessimism about Europe’s hopes in the face of such overwhelming strength, heightened by the endless parade of teenage prodigies rolling off the production line of the US college golf scholarship system.

For my money, though, the gloom is misplaced. Golf has always been a cyclical affair. European stars such as Nick Faldo, Ian Woosnam, José María Olazábal and Seve Ballesteros took the honours before the likes of Tiger Woods reasserted American dominance.

Playing three of the four majors on glitzy, modern US courses with their increasingly long holes, huge bunkers and ultra-fast greens (only the Open Championship is held outside the States) would, in any case, tend to give Americans the edge in these competitions. The enchantingly quirky links courses such as Royal St George’s, Sandwich and St Andrews, where the game originated, are perhaps more attuned to a particularly European sensibility, with touch and subtlety taking precedence over colossal hitting.

Most crucial, though, is the sheer unpredictability of this massively cerebral game. With so much time between strokes for nerves to creep in, confidence or lack of it is usually key to performance, not nationality. Rattling in a couple of astounding putts at crucial stages or chipping in from a bunker can transform a lacklustre journeyman’s morale and spark a jaw-dropping run of birdies and eagles.

Take Europe’s serial Ryder Cup talisman Ian Poulter, who clinched the final place at this year’s Masters when struggling for form, after holing a fiendish putt on the 18th to force the playoff that won him the Houston Open.

“I might not have the most talent but I’ve got the biggest heart,” he once remarked. No-one who watched him drive the demoralised Europeans back into contention from an overwhelming 4-10 deficit in the Miracle at Medinah, in 2012, could forget his visceral scream of defiance, eyes bulging, fist pumping as he snatched a last-ditch victory. This battling attitude was catching, inspiring his teammates and flummoxing America’s golfing royalty.

My advice to the Yanks? Avoid crowing prematurely. And beware of that man Poulter.