FARMINGDALE, NEW YORK | The 12 American Ryder Cup golfers, wearing their red hats and somber expressions, sat around their captain Keegan Bradley early Sunday evening, taking questions about how they nearly achieved the impossible when another round of “Olé, Olé, Olé” caused them to turn their heads.
Just outside, the victorious European players were gathering in advance of their celebratory press conference. Shane Lowry, whose victory celebration had seismologists wondering what was happening in the middle of Long Island Sunday afternoon, had an Irish flag around his shoulders while, nearby, Bob MacIntyre broke into a dance after hugging a friend.
One by one they came. Jon Rahm. Then the injured Viktor Hovland. Then Rory McIlroy.
And the Americans, watching solemnly, were left to live with what they almost did.
While the European story will forever be about winning in the most hostile Ryder Cup road environment ever – the boorish behavior of more than a few tarnished the weekend – the Americans changed the perception of what is possible in the Ryder Cup.
Two days into a Ryder Cup weekend the Americans wanted to forget, they created a Sunday to remember. On a day when it seemed the best they could do was damage control, the Americans won more than two-thirds of the points available but still were left with a 15-13 loss in an event where playing at home is perceived to be the ultimate advantage.
No team had ever come from more than four points behind on Sunday to win the Ryder Cup but with the final matches midway through the back nine, the math and the moment conspired to make it all possible.
Until it wasn’t.
“That was a coin flip there for a second,” said Bradley, who has a tortured history with the Ryder Cup. His suitcase from the 2012 Ryder Cup remains unopened and now he will have the residue of another loss to unpack at some point down the line.
“To watch them go out all week and hold their heads high and then go out there today and do what they did is close to a miracle.”
Keegan BraDley
The Europeans won one of 11 matches on Sunday (because Viktor Hovland was unable to play due to a neck injury, his match counted as a draw, giving both sides a half point) and needed all of their Friday-Saturday brilliance to win the Ryder Cup.
It was another American loss – that’s nine in the last 12 Ryder Cups – but Sunday kept it from being an entirely lost weekend.
“To watch them go out all week and hold their heads high and then go out there today and do what they did is close to a miracle,” Bradley said, sitting among the players he captained.
The reality is the Americans have now lost consecutive Ryder Cups and the perceived dominance that seemed to be coming after their 10-point win at Whistling Straits four years ago vanished two years ago. While the Europeans have cultivated a rare magic with Luke Donald as its wizard, the inventive approach of making Bradley the American captain didn’t produce the desired outcome.
Bradley made mistakes. He was the one who decided to cut the rough down – “Obviously it wasn’t the right decision,” he said – and he doubled down on the foursomes pairing of Collin Morikawa and Harris English and got nothing out of it.
This defeat doesn’t necessitate a complete rebuild of the American Ryder Cup process but it bears reflection, if only to see how to better emulate what the Europeans do almost naturally.
The Americans say the right things about the Ryder Cup and the Europeans live for it. It’s in their coffee, in their circadian rhythms and in their dreams. The Europeans wear it like a tattoo and the Americans wear it like a logo.
In addition to their talent, the Europeans seem bound by their passion, led by the big personalities of Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm, not to mention the lionhearted play of Tommy Fleetwood and Justin Rose. They create a bonfire.
Justin Thomas and Bryson DeChambeau played the part for the Americans but they fell too far behind to overcome the Europeans’ excellence.
“Sometimes in sports, you go up against an opponent that sometimes beats you; they play better. And they played better than us,” Bradley said.
How good was Europe the first two days?
Their four pairings were a combined 32-under par against Scottie Scheffler and his partners. The Europeans took a 3-1 lead in Friday foursomes shooting a combined 16-under par. The Americans matched that 16-under par total in the Saturday foursomes only to lose three of the four matches.
“That’s as high of a level as a Ryder Cup team has ever played on for those two days, I think,” Bradley said.
In the late September sunshine on Sunday, it was the Europeans who were chasing a target that seemed to get no closer as the day wore on and the scoreboard began to bleed American red.
“My thought process was to just keep swimming, just keep moving and keep fighting back.”
Bryson DeChambeau
“When I go back and look at the first couple days of this tournament, at times, it felt like a perfect storm of things were happening against us, and today we had some stuff that seemed to go right,” Scheffler said.
When DeChambeau clawed out a tie against Matt Fitzpatrick after being 5 down after seven holes, the comeback was real enough to touch.
“My thought process was to just keep swimming, just keep moving and keep fighting back,” said DeChambeau, who seemed to stomp from shot to shot as he chased down Fitzpatrick.
Then it was over. Had Russell Henley holed his birdie putt before Lowry made the clincher to retain the Ryder Cup, it would have kept the comeback alive.
“I’ve never seen anything like that, and I’ve never felt anything like that watching golf, playing golf, doesn't matter,” Young said after putting the first full point on the board for the Americans on Sunday.
Two years ago in Rome, the Europeans were still waiting to properly celebrate their second straight Ryder Cup victory on home soil when McIlroy pounded his hand on a table and declared they would win in New York.
The Americans need that same kind of commitment to the cause to possibly win in Ireland in two years. It means finding the right leader – maybe it’s Tiger Woods – and using what happened at Bethpage like oxygen the way the Europeans do.
If the effort needs a soundtrack, the Americans could hear it ringing through the air as they walked out into their empty evening.
E-MAIL RON
Top: Keegan Bradley was left to wonder what went wrong.
DARRON CARROLL, PGA OF AMERICA