Europe still holds the not-so-secret advantage in the Ryder Cup

Mark Cannizzaro

Golf

By means of Mark Cannizzaro

The most enduring and powerful image from the Ryder Cup two years ago at Whistling Straits was Rory McIlroy conducting a TV interview moments after the US team beat Europe, 19-9, trying to make of words through the endless flow of tears.

McIlroy, who has had everything in life and accomplished almost everything in golf, is a mess. Once a young hot-shot major championship winner who could take or leave the Ryder Cup, McIlroy is upset because he cares so much about it now.

“I was very disappointed after Whistling Straits,” McIlroy said on Sunday. “I just knew I had to put on a better performance for my teammates this week, and thankfully I did that.”

McIlroy came up big time for his Marco Simone teammates, with the European beating the Americans 16 ½ to 11 ½ to take back the cup.

When it was all over on Sunday, hearing McIlroy and his teammates speak was a reminder of the respect Europeans have for that 17-inch golden chalice and what it means to own it. .

It’s not fair to say that Americans don’t like the Ryder Cup as much as Europeans do. That becomes a low-hanging fruit argument. But there is something inherent in European players that makes them want it more. It is ingrained in them.

Americans want the cup because they are competitors and they want to win. For Europeans, it is part of them. It is full of their history. It borders on religion.

“We are united by a culture and we are united by a generation of players who came before us,” Englishman Justin Rose said on Sunday night. “This is our time… our time to shine. Not because it’s our stage; we only care about it because of the wonderful role models we have in front of us who show us how to do it. There is a strong culture in the European team.

Rose, as the elder statesman of this team, bridges the gap from the stalwarts from the previous generation – Sergio Garcia, Ian Poulter and Lee Westwood among them – to the new guard – McIlroy (4-1), Jon Rahm (2- 0-2), Viktor Hovland (3-1-1) and Tommy Fleetwood (3-1) to name a few.

“I think culture is big,” McIlroy said. “Seven [Ballesteros]Ollie [Jose Maria Olazabal], the legends of the Ryder Cup before us, we are the caretakers of this European jersey now and we hope to pass it on in the future to a better place than where we found it. I think that’s what we are now.”

Rahm’s golf life as a 28-year-old Spaniard was shaped by watching and idolizing Ballesteros, Olazabal and Sergio Garcia — all Spanish golfers who were Ryder Cup heroes. That’s what Rahm wanted all his life. And that’s what he is now, going 2-0-2 in this Ryder Cup as one of Europe’s warhorses.

No one put it more beautifully than Rahm when asked to put into words what it means to be a Ryder Cupper: “It’s the ability to walk through the gates and through the doors and forget who you are on the outside this week. What you’ve done or what you can do after that really, really doesn’t matter.”

So perfectly stated.

Now for some juxtaposition: Can you imagine this Netflix kerfuffle involving Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay that was reported on Monday as happening with the European team?

Never.

That said: The idea that American players aren’t close is nonsense. They are close in a different way than Europeans, who are more united as one. US players are close in clusters, clusters.

Everyone knows how close Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas are and how tight Schauffele and Cantlay are. There is heavy speculation that a big reason Sam Burns was chosen as captain was his close relationship with Scheffler, the No. 1 ranked player, so they match.

Friendlies pairings have been one of the downfalls for the US this Ryder Cup. Spieth and Thomas, neither of whom arrived in Rome in form, struggled. Schauffele and Cantlay, who are studs at Whistling Straits, failed to win points while playing this time. And the Scheffler-Burns pairing never panned out.

Because of that, US captain Zach Johnson was rightly criticized for agreeing to soft landings, good matches. Johnson, too, should be taken to task for his dismissal of LIV Golf players like Dustin Johnson and Bryson DeChambeau, both of whom would have helped the Americans.

How many times have you heard Johnson talk about how “good friends” he is with Thomas and Burns? It was damning evidence that the captain weighed more in his heart than his head when deciding on his six picks, which yielded a combined 4-12-4 record.

“A good pairing in the European Team doesn’t mean playing with your best mate,” Rose said. “It’s about representing something bigger than yourself, and I feel like that’s what it’s all about to be a European Ryder Cup player.”

As always, Europe has its secret sauce.