Ten years ago, The Times of London ran an extensive feature on its sports section front page detailing all that ails the United States' Ryder Cup team.
The lead image depicted a white, wealthy American family sitting on the patio of a country club, staring off into the idyllic scenery of a golf course. It was just a stock photo, but the image offered an accurate encapsulation of how the British and many Europeans view Americans — rich, comfortable, photogenic and all together perfect. Until they open their mouths. Or, as the feature that ran over multiple pages detailed, they try to compete in a team sport.
The sons of doctors, lawyers, dentists and pilots couldn't possibly know adversity the way their proud British working class boys do, and so the Americans fold at the first sign of adversity in the Ryder Cup. That was both the implicit and explicit gist of the Times story.
Sure enough, the Americans capitulated at the K Club near Dublin that week, one of six defeats in the past seven matches.
Then, as now, the British press has been known to play hard and loose with the facts. But there are some common themes that have defined the Ryder Cup over the past three decades, and especially in the past two, as this year's event gets set to tee off Friday at Hazeltine National Golf Club near Minneapolis.
Bloody fine players
Europe, despite continually fielding a team that lags behind the U.S. by world ranking, has harnessed the bond its players feel with each other to take the Americans to the woodshed, often in dramatic fashion. Included have been beatings on American soil in 2004 and 2012 — the former an embarrassment and the later a dramatic comeback reminiscent of the U.S. win under similar circumstances in 1999.
Other, more nuanced factors have come into play. From a young age, Brits and Europeans tend to have more experience playing four balls and foursomes — two of the contests featured in the Ryder Cup — whereas the masses in the U.S. play stroke play right up to the very highest levels. Throw a player once every two years into the Ryder Cup cauldron, and the lack of familiarity with the format certainly can't help your typical American player.
And while it's true that the Americans have historically, and again this week, held a clear edge in average player ranking, that narrative largely ignores some other facts, including that the Europeans have had some bloody fine players in their own right, stretching back to the early 1980s.
Not long after the format was switched in 1979 to include players from continental Europe in order to prevent the Ryder Cup from losing its relevance in the face of American domination over Great Britain and Ireland, a spectacular generation led by Seve Ballesteros, Nick Faldo, Ian Woosnam and Sandy Lyle came along. That meant that the Europeans weren't always the plucky underdogs their fans and media often believed. The first wave fostered others — Colin Montgomerie, Padraig Harrington and Lee Westwood to name just three — and this year's European team has the reigning Masters champion (Danny Willett), Open winner (Henrik Stenson), Olympic gold medallist (Justin Rose) and Rory McIlroy, who just took the FedEx Cup on Sunday.
The outsiders
There will be no talk of the World Cup of Hockey once tee balls start flying on Friday, but there are some common elements between the pan-European team that reached the final in Toronto and the historical ties that bind players in the Ryder Cup.
European hockey players often feel like outsiders when they come to North America, especially those from countries such as Switzerland and Denmark that aren't considered traditional powers. Canadian Ralph Krueger — his long career coaching in Europe being key to the philosophy that helped Team Europe make the final at the World Cup — convinced a ragtag bunch from eight countries to play together. But really, when you look at Europe's lineup, they were a very accomplished group of individual players — nationality aside.
With golf, on the surface there is little to bind the Englishmen that have numerically dominated the European side with the host of Spaniards, Germans and occasional Belgian, French and Danish players that make up the team. Need proof? How about Brexit, for starters.
However, Europeans feel that many Americans — players, journalists, fans alike — view them as being inferior, even with the likes of Ballesteros back then, on up to McIlroy now.
Europe also plays for the pride of their tour. The European Tour remains in a constant survival struggle to keep itself relevant as its top members defect to the U.S. The man responsible for a looming reinvention is Canadian Keith Pelley, who has been in charge of the European Tour for a little over a year.
Beyond the team's current and historical playing ability hiding in plain sight, there is also a great dichotomy at play with Europe: often it's the very players who cross the Atlantic that are among Europe's greatest defenders. Be it McIlroy, Ian Poulter in recent years, or others such as Rose and Stenson, many top Europeans live in the U.S., and are unlikely to ever return full-time to Europe. And yet they all wear their heart on their sleeve — in large part, they say, to show that the European Tour's survival is important, even though their own defections have harmed it.
Europe's Ryder Cup, World Cup of Hockey teams have something in common
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