Skipper plays down America bust-ups

THOMAS BJORN insists European greatness and not USA chaos was behind their Ryder Cup triumph.

Since the crushing 17 -10 defeat in Paris, USA’s Patrick Reed has criticised the decision not to pair him with Jordan Spieth.

There have also been reports of a bust-up between Brooks Koepka and Dustin Johnson at Europe’s victory party on Sunday night.

But Europe skipper Bjorn says his team’s heroics were the driving force behind regaining the trophy.

He said: “Sometimes you’ve got to go with one team played better than another. Somebody’s going to win and somebody’s going to lose.

Difficult

“This time it was our turn. I don’t want to put too much on if anything went wrong in their team room. I don’t believe in that.

“Obviously when you lose sometimes it can be hard and difficult to deal with, when you have expectations of yourself.

“From what I saw from the outside I thought Jim (Furyk, the US captain) did a good job.

“It just didn’t work out for them this way but I would like to put it down to our 12 players just playing really, really well.”

Europe’s seventh success from the past nine Ryder Cups came with home advantage, which they will not have in two years at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin.

There had also been some European fans booing the Americans on the first tee at Le Golf National.

But even with the benefits that come through being the hosts, Bjorn believes Europe can retain their trophy.

He said: “I don’t think there’s anything that says you can’t win away from home, but it’s tougher away from home, it certainly is.

“It’s easy to think that it’s an easy thing to keep winning Ryder Cups. You’ve got to want it, you’ve got to want it bad. This team wanted it very much.

“They went out and really worked hard, and from the day they set foot in Paris they wanted it probably a little bit more. I don’t think me trying to stop them (booing) was going to stop those things, and initially it was there.

“I heard a bit of it early on, and it’s not something that we particularly want or like, but when you get a big sporting occasion these things happen.

“It’s fans being overpassionate about supporting their own team, but for me it happened on the first tee and that was about it.”