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Masters Craftsman, Patrick Reed celebrated Masters victory
DIS-UNITED STATES IN RYDER CUP CAPITULATION
Having comprehensively taken back control of the Ryder Cup with a commanding 17
– 11 victory over Europe at Hazeltine in 2016, it had looked as if the good ship USA
had been steadied and was preparing to sail into French waters last month to record
back-to-back wins for the Stars and Stipes for the first time since 1991 and 1993.
ut, just a week after Tiger Woods had
regained that winning feeling with a
stunning individual victory at the PGA
TOUR Championship, he and the rest
of his high-fl ying team, under what
appeared the assured captaincy of Jim
Furyk ran aground at Le Golf National near
Paris, raising the fundamental question as to
whether the typical PGA TOUR professional
understands team golf in general and the Ryder
Cup in particular. It was a 42nd Ryder Cup, the
fi rst ever to be staged in France, that Team USA
had entered the fray as red-hot favourites for the
fi rst time in a generation, indeed, since Europe
joined the fray, signifi cantly strengthening GR &
Ireland in 1979.
The Stars & Stripes had won only eight out
of 21 stagings of the terrifi c transatlantic tussle,
but Hazeltine in 2016 under the shrewd captaincy
26 G o l f P l u s
DECEMBER
of Davis Love III appeared, on the surface at
least, to have reignited the USA’s passion for the
Ryder Cup and its team members’ love of golf’s
equivalent of hand-to-hand combat.
Not so, it seems
Four-years-ago at the post-match press
conference, Phil Mickelson, a man with a
Ryder Cup record best described as, ‘Poor,’
considering his individual career record set
the proverbial cat amongst the pigeons by
ripping into defeated captain Tom Watson, who
was sat alongside, ‘Lefty,’ in the Gleneagles
media centre. Mickelson generated much more
criticism than praise for his verbal attack on
the then 65-year-old USA captain immediately
after their collective 2014 defeat at Gleneagles,
criticism towards a man whose playing record,
played four, won three reads signifi cantly better
2018
than Mickelson’s and who is a fully-paid-up
member of golfi ng royalty. What’s more, in life,
in sport, in golf and especially matters pertaining
to Samuel Ryder’s tiny gold chalice, one does
not set-about a man, a true legend of the game of
golf, doing his level best, especially with limited
resources at his disposal in such an unpredictable
arena as golf and far away from home. Having
retrieved – some might say, ‘Salvaged,’ - the
Ryder Cup at Hazeltine two-years-ago under
the tutelage of Davis Love III, Team USA
were widely considered favourites for the Paris
match, with Europe under the captaincy of Dane
Thomas BjØrn, but, not only was the American
team wiped-out 0 – 4 on the Friday Foursomes,
they failed to measure-up in the crucial Sunday
Singles, losing that 7.5 pts – 4.5 pts, Woods –
hero one week, zero the next - failing to register
a single point for Team USA in four matches,
Mickelson, stood down for two vital Saturday
Foursomes and Fourballs similarly drawing a
blank, no points from two matches.
Perhaps Mickelson’s performance was less
surprising that Woods; just seven-days-earlier,