Ryder Cup: Europe exhales at it survives frantic American comeback

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FARMINGDALE, N.Y. — Say this for Team USA — they made Sunday at the Ryder Cup interesting, but ultimately the hole Europe put them over the first two days was too much.

It didn't matter that Cameron Young and Justin Thomas and Scottie Scheffler and Xander Schaueffle all came alive Sunday to win their matches and give the U.S. a chance. Or that the U.S. had closed a 12-5 gap all the way to 13.5-10. In the end, the Europeans are hoisting the Ryder Cup again. 

This is a Ryder Cup that will be remembered for two factors: the absolute domination of the European team, and the abysmal behavior of the Bethpage gallery, particularly on Saturday afternoon. They’re both vexing questions for the United States — first, because the whole purpose of a Ryder Cup is to win; and second, because the purpose of a home-field advantage is to intimidate, not embolden, the opposition. The Americans failed on both counts, and one way or another, something has to change, both inside and outside the ropes.

In retrospect, the Ryder Cup really ended on the very first match of Friday morning. (Perhaps it ended much earlier — when Keegan Bradley was selected as captain, when the United States decided to blow up its entire Ryder infrastructure again and again, when U.S. players didn’t spend that extra 10 minutes on the putting green as children. That’s for later analysis.)

On Friday morning, a fired-up United States duo of Bryson DeChambeau and Justin Thomas posted a win on the very first hole of their match against Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton … and then didn’t win another hole all match, falling 4&3 after 15 holes.

That set tones for both teams: Europe as relentless juggernaut, U.S. as withered afterthought. Europe would go on to win the first three matches of the opening session — none reached the 16th hole — and the rout was on. By Friday night, the Europeans had a 5 ½ -2 ½ lead, along with all the mojo and momentum in New York.

“We can just turn this thing around in one quick session,” Bradley insisted on Friday night. “You go out tomorrow and you try to win one session, then you try to win the next one. You don't need to get all four points in one session.”

Even two points in a session would have been welcome for the Americans, and yet they couldn’t manage even that in any of the four team rounds. Hope turned to frustration turned to desperation, and as Saturday’s afternoon rounds wore on, the Bethpage crowd took it upon themselves to attempt to do what the Americans couldn’t: break the spirit of the Europeans.

The gallery centered its fury on Rory McIlroy, with his mate Shane Lowry taking strays along the way. Obscenities, random noises, shots at McIlroy’s tabloid history and Lowry’s physique filled the air on Saturday afternoon. After six holes’ worth of verbal tirades, even the American players had heard enough, and actively pleaded for the crowd to — in McIlroy’s words — “shut the f*** up.” It didn’t help; fans were even throwing beers at McIlroy by the end of the day.

“When you play an away Ryder Cup, it's really, really challenging,” McIlroy said after the round, taking the diplomatic (and, at Bethpage, untraveled) high road. “It's not for me to say. People can be their own judge of whether they took it too far or not.”

As the sun set on a dispirited American, and emboldened European, crowd leaving Bethpage on Saturday night, the margin stood at 11 ½ Europe, 4 ½ America … meaning all Europe needed to do was win a mere 2 ½ points over 12 Sunday singles matches to retain the Ryder Cup. For professional golfers of Europe’s caliber, that’s about as tough as breaking 100 over 18 holes.

“We've still got another day. Who knows? You never know,” an increasingly-desperate Bradley said Saturday night. “We can go out there and win. What do we got to win, ten? Wild stuff happens in sports all the time.”

The United States won a half-point without even swinging a club on Sunday morning when Viktor Hovland withdrew with a neck injury. Unfortunately for American interests, Europe also claimed a half-point thanks to an odd quirk of Ryder Cup rules that grants a half-point to both sides whenever one player withdraws. That meant Europe needed only two points to hold onto the cup heading into Sunday’s singles matches.

There’s a brief moment in almost every Ryder Cup Sunday where it seems like a miraculous comeback is in order. It’s happened before; in 1999, the U.S. was down 10-6 heading into Sunday at Brookline and ended up winning 14 ½ to 13 ½. The Europeans flipped the script in 2012, trailing by the same margin, and then winning by the same, at Medinah.

This year, the Witching Hour happened Sunday right around 3:00, when the U.S. led in four matches, including three of the initial four, and Europe led in only two. That set off a wave of “If Cam Young and JT hang on, and Cantlay and Henley can flip their matches, and if…” speculation that was mostly hope and fantasy.

Bradley, a Patriots fan, invoked the ghost of 28-3 to inspire his team, but the European team is not the Atlanta Falcons. They’ve been through this all before — literally, 11 of the 12 players on this year’s roster were on the 2023 winning team in Rome — and they know how to manage stress, nerves, mouthy fans and a few red flags on the leaderboard.

Nowhere was that more evident than on the 13th, where Justin Rose flew the green in his match against Cam Young. Really flew it, as in “sent the ball down a hill and all the way to the 14th tee.” Pinned up against a grandstand, firing through trees, Rose simply chipped right up onto the green to win the hole and cut into Young’s lead. The message: Europe is relentless and, apparently, unkillable.

The U.S. made a run, but in the end, it fell to Shane Lowry to close it out for Europe, a putt that set off celebrations all over the course, “Olé!” cheers all around. Europe will now hold the Cup for at least another two years, until the two teams meet at Adare Manor in Ireland in 2027.

So how could all this have happened? There are two answers, one obvious and one more complex. First, Europe putted at an otherworldly level; per DataGolf, Europeans comprised 10 of the top 11 putters in the tournament. (The lone exception: Cameron Young, who ranked eighth overall.) The Ryder Cup, at its heart, is a putting competition, and the Europeans figured out Bethpage’s greens a whole lot faster than the Americans.

On a grander scale, something needs to change for the U.S. to return to respectability, much less competitiveness. The gap between the two squads is wide and widening. Since 1993, Europe has won 11 Ryder Cups, the United States only 4. Over the last eight tournaments, Europe has claimed six, including two on U.S. soil. The days where the United States could roll out 12 players, chant “U-S-A!” a couple times and wallop the rest of the world’s best are long gone.

For now, the U.S. has to sit with its humiliation. It will be a long two years until Adare Manor, and an even longer four years until the Ryder Cup returns to U.S. shores at Hazeltine in Minnesota.