The Hindu : Sport / Golf : Europe reigns supreme

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Tuesday, Sep 21, 2004

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Sport - Golf

Europe reigns supreme

By Glenn Sheeley

BLOOMFIELD TOWNSHIP (MICHIGAN), SEPT. 20. There was no repeat of The Miracle at Brookline, only a tease at the start before what officially became The Obliteration at Oakland Hills.

Had any doubt existed as to where things stand with the tussle for Samuel Ryder's hardware, this should be sufficient evidence. Putting it in individual terms, which is probably the key to the whole deal, this was as convincing as Tiger Woods winning by 12 at Augusta National or 15 at Pebble Beach.

This was Europe winning the Ryder Cup on Sunday at Oakland Hills Country Club in an 18-1/2-9-1/2 blowout, handing the Americans their worst beating ever in the same competition where they used to impersonate the 1927 Yankees.

Change of guard

With four wins by Europe in the past five meetings, should there be any doubt? It was obvious to even the lads just vanquished. The changing of the Ryder Cup guard is official.

"If they keep bringing the Cup back on their airplane, we're the underdogs, we know we are," Davis Love III decided just off the 18th green while the Europeans sprayed champagne behind them and sang their victory songs. "We're a half-point underdog already for the next time.

"Every time we come to play this event, they're David and we're Goliath," said M.G. Orender, the PGA of America president, "and I'm not sure it's that way anymore."

"Maybe they're the favourites from here on and we're the underdogs," said Stewart Cink, "and we'll come out with all cylinders pumping next time and topple the giants."

Maybe, but not unless something changes. It's that hard-to-define chemistry that the United States seems to be lacking. The Ryder Cup was not lost or won on Sunday in singles. It was a cumulative pillage, coming through the Americans' failure to find cohesion in the team matches, beginning with the 6-1/2-1-1/2 drilling on Friday. Down 11-5 heading into Sunday's play, they left themselves a task that even Brookline sage Ben Crenshaw called highly improbable.

Bad karma

While U.S. captain Hal Sutton insisted the Americans came together in the team room, it must have been just for ping-pong and pinball. The United States played tentatively and tightly, some players suggested, and the trend was depicted no more clearly than with U.S. captain Hal Sutton's forced pairing of Woods and Phil Mickelson that backfired on Friday with two losses. Even Sutton admitted that the `karma' wasn't there, no matter what the world rankings were.

Woods contended, "I thought we jelled. We just didn't make enough putts."

The European players insist it's thicker than that. From the Europeans' perspective, hardly fathomable, for instance, was the move by rookie Chris Riley on Friday to tell Sutton he was too mentally drained to play again in the afternoon.

"Why we win?" said France's Thomas Levet. "Because we are a team. We are not individuals. We are a team. It doesn't matter who plays, who hits it well, who plays bad. It's just a team. I didn't put a point on the board before today, and I feel like I put 20 points on it."

"We need to take a look in the mirror and really figure it out before the next one," said Cink. "We just have to figure out why this team doesn't come together and show its potential."

"They just seem to come together very well," Love said. "We ask ourselves, `Why does this keep happening?' I think we just want to win so bad that we don't play well. But they've been winning and they have the confidence."

For a while on Sunday there were whispers of a comeback. Woods handled rookie Paul Casey 3 and 2 in the opening match, and at one stage the United States led four matches and were all-square in three others. But it was a mirage, as Europe ended up winning the day 7-1/2-4-1/2.

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