All but one of their players is among the top 20 in the world — the lone exception is Ryder Cup rookie Scottie Scheffler at No. 21. Six of them are major champions. They have the FedEx Cup champion and the Olympic gold medalist on their side.
It just rarely translates into winning the Ryder Cup, and only Europe seems to have the answer.
A few Americans at least tried to find an explanation. They had a couple of them, and neither involved the Europeans having some sort of magic potion.
“We seem to put more pressure on ourselves,” said Rickie Fowler, whose last four Ryder Cup matches have been halved with Tiger Woods. “I don’t know if it’s because we don’t want it as bad or whatever. I’ve never seen the Europeans put that kind of pressure on themselves, whether it’s because they let us come at them or whether they just play better when there’s more pressure on.
“Either way, I think one of the things you worry about is are we putting too much pressure on ourselves? You have to go out and shoot even par every day. You can’t shoot 3-over one day and 2-under the next. If you let those swings happen, they usually lead to bigger numbers.”
Jordan Spieth was asked if being a home player affected him more positively or negatively. His initial response was “both.”
“It’s great to have all your friends and family there,” he said. “It definitely gives you a little extra energy to play, but at the same time you can put pressure on yourself where it might not need to be.”
He cited the Friday fourballs as an example of over-pressure. Spieth and Patrick Reed lost both their games, although they were going against each other. Justin Thomas and Rickie Fowler lost two of their four games, too.
“I don’t know if it’s something that can be fixed,” Spieth said. “I think sometimes it just happens where you get into matches and the momentum swings one way or another.”
That was basically what they all said — there were no easy answers for why this has happened — and Thomas pointed out that they’ve been on both sides of it.
“No matter what the big picture is on points and everything, we can go ahead and put some pressure on ourselves,” he said. “I think we started to play more of that this week.”
Thomas hit a spectacular shot from the woods into the first cut of rough on the 18th hole in singles that set up another half-point for the American side. He said it was good to be part of a close match like that, but he also pointed out how important it is to score early.
“That’s one thing we didn’t do well this week,” Thomas said. “We left too many opportunities out there. We can definitely learn from that. If we play like that in France, it will be a good thing.”
Fowler thinks they’ve gotten better at this sort of match, where the Ryder Cup really is one-on-one. He said he’d like to take some pressure off his teammates by winning more points for them. He did that at Hazeltine.
“My last couple Ryder Cups, I’ve just played my own game and kind of let the match play out,” Fowler said. “Maybe I should try to take a little more ownership and control of matches.”
That sounds like it could be good advice for this group in France. Don’t wait for the momentum to swing, try to push it yourself. It might already be too late by then, but …
“We’ve been here before,” Thomas said. “We’re going again in two years and we want to fix this so we don’t have to go through these heartbreaks.”
