Sunday, at Glen Eagles, Scotland, the U.S. lost the Ryder Cup with 11.5 points to Europe’s 16.5 points. It was the eighth time out of the last ten Ryder Cups that Europe has beaten the USA. Held bi-annually, this professional golf competition is one of the foremost sporting events in the world. It started during the 1920s. The U.S. had a lock on this bi-annual competition, winning it 22 times out of the first 25 competitions. But no more. Scotland’s Rory McIlroy, now the Number 1 golfer in the world, says the European players want to get even with, and then surpass, the Americans. It is indeed a fierce competition with some national loyalty at heart.
Golf is becoming more of an international sport. The South Korean women now usually have half of the first ten places on the LPGA money list at year’s end. And Communist China is significantly embracing golf. They are building golf courses galore. Yet Communists used to thumb their noses at golf courses. They called them the playground of the bourgeoisie–the rich capitalists who supposedly care not for the poor or workers such as greenskeepers.
Why is the U.S. losing so badly at the Ryder Cup when we used to dominate so much? One sobering statistic for diehard American golf fans who weep about our pros shaming themselves at the Ryder Cup is the population difference from where these competitors originate. The U.S. population is about 315 million, the European Union population is well over 500 million, and Europe proper is about 750 million. So, the numbers are against the U.S. And although the U.S. overtook the Old Country as the golf capital of the world in the twentieth century, the number of golfers is now in decline here the past few years whereas golf is becoming more popular in certain other countries.
But if you want a insider’s view about why the U.S. is losing the Ryder Cup, just ask major championship winners Phil Mickelson and Paul Azinger. Both have now publicly criticized U.S. Captain Tom Watson, an eight-time major championship winner, for his strategy he used last week. The Ryder Cup is a three-day event involving both singles and team competitions. After the favored team of Mickelson and Kegan Bradley lost their match on Friday, Captain Watson surprisingly benched them the next day, on Saturday. During most of the first decade of this century, Mickelson was the Number 2 pro golfer in the world behind Number 1 player Tiger Woods of the U.S. Orthopedic surgery kept Tiger out of the competition this year for the second time in his career.
Mickelson didn’t take the demotion silently. Instead, he surprisingly sounded-off to the golf media that day. He complained that Watson’s captaincy style was to ignore the players wishes and not seek advice from past U.S. captains. Mickelson mentioned former U.S. Ryder Cup Captain Azinger, paying him tribute for his style. But Watson did have some legacy bragging rights since he captained the U.S. to victory once before.
Today’s USA TODAY newspaper has a lead article about an interview with Paul Azinger about this matter. Paul agreed with Phil. And Paul indicated that he was open to captaining the team again in the future. The says say about Paul’s previous captaincy, “Azinger didn’t go it alone. He involved his players, including their theories for the captain’s picks and partners for the team matches. Once the team was in place, he split them into three groups of four–his pods–so they could become closer units in a big family.”
But the bottom line is that European pro golfers currently have four of the five top Sony rankings in the world. European players have been winning several of the world’s four major championships, three of them held every year here in the U.S. Plus, the European players have an edge on the American players when the Ryder Cup is played in the Old Country–Scotland and England–due to different golf course design and sometimes extreme weather conditions. So, it is looking as though the U.S. Ryder Cup teams in the future will have to overcome a lot to get back to their old winning ways in this most interesting golf competition in the world.
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