It is the intoxicating beauty of the Ryder Cup that there is no middle ground.
The echoes of another hoarse-throated European victory song will reverberate from Rome in the days and weeks to come, as they should, while the Americans are left to contemplate another overseas failure that came wrapped in manufactured controversy while being done in by what was, for the three days that mattered, a superior team.
It will be easy to blame the Americans for their own defeat, and many critics started before lunchtime on Friday after the Stars and Stripes got off to a dreadful start that left them facing a hill that looked like the Matterhorn.
Quite simply, the Europeans played better. That’s what wins Ryder Cups, the same way the Americans dominated the event at Whistling Straits two years ago.
It wasn’t hats or no hats. It wasn’t about money.
It was about Rory McIlroy redeeming himself for falling flat two years ago. It was about Viktor Hovland being the best player in the world at the moment. It’s about Jon Rahm seeming like a cosmic force at times. Those three combined to go 9-2-3 in Rome.
That’s the way it looks and feels for the winning side.
For the Americans, the post-mortem begins with the understanding that they weren’t good enough at Marco Simone Golf Club. It doesn’t matter whether they are better top to bottom over 12 months or that their world rankings are higher.
“The Europeans played phenomenal golf. It’s really that simple,” U.S. captain Zach Johnson said.
Jordan Spieth never looked comfortable. Scottie Scheffler never won a match. Collin Morikawa and Xander Schauffele lost three of their four matches. Rickie Fowler went 0-2. Johnson’s captain’s picks went 4-12-4.
That’s not to say the Americans didn’t make it more difficult on themselves.
It’s fair to question Johnson’s decision to keep 11 major championships off to the side in the opening session Friday morning when the Europeans put a stranglehold on the proceedings by going 4-0.
It’s fair to wonder how much it mattered that nine of the 12 Americans did not play a tournament for a month before the Ryder Cup, unlike the competition-sharp Europeans. None of the U.S. players would take a month off before a major championship, but a similar schedule didn’t hurt the team two years ago.
It’s fair to wonder how it might have been different had the Americans squeezed out a win or two in Friday afternoon four-balls when they were in position to do that but couldn’t. That’s when this Ryder Cup really got away from them.
The Americans got better as the Ryder Cup went on, but they looked flat on Friday. How can that be?
Of course, it’s hard to look excited when you’re getting your butt kicked from sunup to sundown and losing foursomes, 7-1, over two days. Unless the Americans can get foursomes eliminated from the Ryder Cup, they need to figure it out.
When the Americans had reason to be excited, it sparked into an unfortunate kerfuffle involving Patrick Cantlay’s caddie, Joe LaCava, and Rory McIlroy early Saturday evening. The Americans didn’t have many explosive moments during the first two days and when they found one, it erupted like flash powder.
The Europeans have always played the passion card, and it worked again. It’s not as simple as having the last shirt that Seve Ballesteros wore in a Ryder Cup hanging in the team room, but that’s part of it.
To borrow a line from a song, the Europeans played as if they had soaked their souls in gas and set their hearts afire.
What worked for the Americans two years ago – giving each player the freedom to do what works best for him – didn’t produce the same results in Rome.
If the Americans do nothing else at Bethpage Black in two years, they need to push passion over procedure. Move the Statue of Liberty to Bethpage, if necessary. Get Springsteen or Stapleton to sing the national anthem each morning. Ask Taylor Swift to attend.
Playing a Ryder Cup on home soil may be the greatest home-field advantage in sports, and the Americans must maximize it. There’s a reason the Europeans haven’t lost on their side of the Atlantic since 1993, and it’s not just because of the putts they’ve holed.
The only American to post a winning record was Max Homa, who went 3-1-1, which helps explain why he was the only American to play all five matches. He’s now 7-1-1 in international team play, so if anyone is looking to rekindle the Captain America thing, we may have found the guy.
On the bright side, Brian Harman and Patrick Cantlay won two matches apiece and provided a streak of gristle the Americans desperately needed.
Cantlay found himself in the bull’s-eye from both sides, the Europeans chiding him for not wearing a hat while some Americans pointed the finger at him for being a disruptive presence on the team based on social-media reports that he later called “outright lies.”
The buddy system – letting Spieth and Thomas, Scheffler and Burns, Schauffele and Cantlay play together – didn’t work as they went a combined 0-5-1.
It is the kind of tempest that tends to erupt in Ryder Cups, especially on the American side, whether it was Phil Mickelson’s public takedown of Tom Watson’s leadership style at Gleneagles in 2014 or Patrick Reed complaining about not getting his way in France in 2018.
Cantlay responded by manning up and embracing the noise, giving it back to the European fans by tipping his imaginary cap. Seeing his teammates tip their caps to the crowd when he holed a critical putt on the 18th green Saturday afternoon and then seeing Justin Thomas and Xander Schauffele play hatless Sunday undermined the fractured-team narrative.
It would help Cantlay if he could show more emotion week in and week out on the PGA Tour where his stoicism is almost numbing, but that’s not who he is. He cares, but it rarely shows.
Earlier this year, when he was rumored to be courting LIV Golf while on the PGA Tour Policy Board, Cantlay made a presentation to the board detailing the falsehoods being spread about him for fear that his peers would not believe he was acting in their best interest in that role.
In defeat, everything feels like a big deal, and maybe it is. The selection of Justin Thomas was justified by his play. Would Keegan Bradley or Lucas Glover have changed the outcome? No.
Both sides rely heavily on analytics. They’re great when you win. They’re just numbers when you lose. Gut instinct usually matters more than algorithms.
This doesn’t require another task force or a total burndown of the system. The Americans had won two of the previous three Ryder Cups, and the last five events have been decided by an average of 5½ points, with the home sides dominating.
The Europeans waited two long years to get past what happened at Whistling Straits.
Now it’s the Americans’ turn to wait, and it will be a very long two years.
E-MAIL RON
Top: American captain Zach Johnson (fourth from left) and team members Justin Thomas (left), Scottie Scheffler, Brooks Koepka and Collin Morikawa look on helplessly as a Ryder Cup thumping progresses.
BRENDAN MORA, SPORTSFILE VIA GETTY IMAGES