Behind U.S. Ryder Cup win: Youth and talent

September 26, 2021 by Art Spander in articles, golf

KOHLER, Wis. — This time, this renaissance Ryder Cup, Americans were left shaking hands instead of shaking their heads.

This time golfers in their 20s, and yet in their prime, overcame the nonsensical idea there’s something lacking in the character of those who play for the United States.

This time the U.S., led by Collin Morikawa and Patrick Cantlay — in truth, by all those kids under the leadership of captain Steve Stricker — snatched back the Cup in America’s Dairyland, Wisconsin, also Stricker’s home state.

It was inevitable after two days of this three-day event, when the U.S. stormed to a 11-5 lead before Sunday’s singles, that America would win. Which it did by a final score of 18-9 — the most lopsided American triumph in the last 15 matches.

Europe had been dominant in recent years, however, taking seven of the previous nine tournaments and lording it over the U.S.

When Europe won, in a rout, at Detroit’s Oakland Hills in 2006, a 24-year-old Euro team member from Spain, Sergio Garcia, gloated, “I think that this whole team and also myself, we just live for this.”

Did the Cup mean more to Europe than the U.S.? Until the pandemic, Euro fans came to America to sing and cheer. U.S. players were stung by stories saying the Euros won because they got along with each other, because they were more emotional than Americans.

It grated on the U.S. players. So did losing.

“They have run the score up on us before,” said Tony Finau on Saturday night, although as one of the rookies he had not been involved in those Cup matches. “And if we have the opportunity, we are going to run it up on them (Sunday).”

In effect they did, but golf is not like football. You just play as well as you can, hitting balls down fairways and into the cup. You only run up the score if the other side doesn’t play well.

Which was the problem for Europe. Garcia now is 41, even though he and countryman Jon Rahm teamed successfully — the Spanish Armada — and Rahm was routed in singles by Scottie Scheffler.

Paul Casey, a longtime Euro Ryder Cupper, is 44. Ian Poulter, the emotional leader, is 45.

Morikawa, the Cal grad (and British Open and PGA champ) is 24. Bryson DeChambeau is 28. And Brooks Koepka, while a veteran and winner of two U.S. Opens and two PGA Championships, is only 31. Dustin Johnson, who won all five of his Ryder Cup matches, is a bit older at 37.

And then there’s Jordan Spieth, 29, winner of three majors. He’d been on losing Ryder Cup teams overseas, heard the fans taunt and chant. On Sunday, he heard Americans, jammed on the Whistling Straits course along Lake Michigan, shout again and again, ”U.S.A., U.S.A.”

“I've only lost one other one, and it's dismal,” said Poulter. “You know, watching the guys out on 18 enjoying themselves is something that you come into this week with visions of that happening for you as a team.

“We've got a great team this week, and we were outplayed. Every session was difficult. They did their job, and they made it painful for us today, and this one's going to hurt for a bit.”

What’s going to hurt even more is the realization that a change has occurred. The old guard — yes, that includes Lee Westwood, a 1-up winner Sunday over Harris English — is finished.

The next Ryder Cup, in Italy, isn’t until 2023. Europe will need new talent. The U.S. already has that new talent.

“It was a full team effort, and everyone contributed and everyone put in their full efforts to make sure this week was going to play well,” said Morikawa, part of that new American talent.

“And obviously, coming out on top feels really, really good.”

Obviously. Finally.

Stricker’s deep team closing in on Ryder Cup

September 25, 2021 by Art Spander in articles, golf

KOHLER, Wis. — Even Steve Stricker, a man of measured words who offers a classic Midwestern approach, felt obliged to boast about the U.S. Ryder Cup squad he is privileged to captain.

“Yeah, this team is deep,” Stricker said Saturday. “They are so good, and they have had a great couple of years to make this team.

“Everybody came in ready and prepared. They are hitting it well. They came all on board.”

They came eager to regain the Cup, to regain the prestige that in the days of Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer was American golf. And with only one round remaining, the 12 singles matches Sunday, it seems they’ve done exactly that.

Yes, it’s not over until the fat lady sings or the slender golf pro swings, and yes, there was the Miracle at Medinah in 2012, when the Euros rallied impossibly. But this time, after two days of team play, two foursome matches and two four-ball matches, America is ahead, 11-6, although on Saturday Europe got more involved with victories.

The U.S. needs three and a half points to get the trophy for only the second time in the last six Ryder Cups.

With that deep team, loaded with major champions, Collin Morikawa, Dustin Johnson, Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas, Brooks Koepka, and Bryson DeChambeau — and Olympic champion Xander Schauffele — it will get those points.

No more to hear the Euro fans, who take these matches seriously — and gloriously — with that irritating chant, “Ole, ole, ole.”

It’s an issue of manpower. You go down the line and eventually someone produces, that is if everyone doesn’t produce.

Jon Rahm and Sergio Garcia, the Spaniards, were undefeated on the Whistling Straits course the first two days, Garcia earning a Ryder Cup record 24th victory.

But it’s been two against too many.

In foursomes, how about a U.S. grouping of Morikawa, a British Open and PGA Championship winner, and Johnson, who has a U.S. Open?

Or a team of longtime pals Jordan Spieth, who’s won the Masters, British and U.S. Opens, and Thomas, who has a PGA Championship?

Dustin smashes the tee shots. Collin follows with balls on the green. Team play to the utmost.

No bickering, no sniggering, just golfing — and good times.

”We are playing really good golf as a team,” said Spieth, although he and Koepka lost Saturday afternoon to the guys nicknamed the Spanish Armada.

“Everybody is pretty confident in each other,” said Spieth. “And we said it from the get-go. We have all known each other for a long time. Other than a couple of us, we have known each other since high school or even grade school. We are having a blast off the course, and that's feeding into the lightness in our rounds as well.”

All 12 of the American team members earned at least a half point the first two days, a fitting example of balance.

“Obviously, the conditions have been pretty difficult,” said Johnson about morning chill and constant wind off adjacent Lake Michigan. “But I feel like I've just played solid. Not trying to do anything too crazy.

“Just keep the ball in play, especially in foursomes where we're out there and pars are good scores, especially on a lot of these holes.”

Stricker was not displeased splitting the Saturday four-ball matches.

“This afternoon session was an important one,” he pointed out. “If they blank us, they get right back in the game. Splitting the session was a good outcome for us.”

The best outcome is yet to come.

“You know, we'll have an hour once we get in to kind of put our lineup out and get ready for (Sunday),” he said.

“But you know, it's about getting these guys some rest. It's a long two days when they are out here all day playing 36, some of these guys, and yeah, so get back to the hotel, eat and rest.”

Then go out for a very big day in American golf.

U.S. Ryder Cuppers get along — and get ball into cup

September 24, 2021 by Art Spander in articles, golf

KOHLER, Wis.— So the first day of the Ryder Cup, American golfers disproved the idea they can’t get along, or more importantly can’t get the ball into the cup.

Maybe our culture isn’t all that bad at that. It’s obvious our golfers are quite good.

Not only did the U.S. build up a 6-2 lead — you need 14½ points to claim the Cup when play finishes
Sunday — but in the process, American players scored wins over a couple of nemeses from the European team who once were unbeatable, Rory McIlroy and Ian Poulter.

In the foursomes matches on Friday morning, team rookies Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele combined to win each of the first five holes and overwhelmed McIlroy and Poulter, 5 and 3.

“I don't know if anyone could have beat Xander and Patrick today,” said Poulter. ”They played really good, four birdies in a row. Geeze, yeah, they played great.”

Geeze, yeah, so did every American playing in what could be described as a home game, on the Whistling Straits course along Lake Michigan, north of Milwaukee and south of Green Bay.

U.S. golfers — meaning golfers who have U.S. passports and not those who just live and play in the U.S. — have been spoiling for a day like this.

Team Europe had won the Cup four of the last five times, the American failures blamed on everything from a lack of team chemistry to a reliance on power over finesse.

Euros, we’re told, are better at communication, although how this helps when you’re alone on the tee is a mystery.

The way Bryson DeChambeau hits a ball is no mystery, however. On the 581-yard, par-5 fifth hole, teamed with Scottie Scheffler in the afternoon better ball, DeChambeau smashed a 417-yard drive. Seventy-two yards from the pin, he wedged close enough for an eagle 3.

DeChambeau and Scheffler halved that match with Jon Rahm and Tyrell Hatton. Rahm, the Spaniard who won the U.S. Open — and went to Arizona State — was responsible for half of the Euros’ two total points.

The American players were, well, pleased and wary. Things can turn quickly, although it’s doubtful they will. This U.S. team is young but experienced.

Asked about the inability of he and DeChambeau to close out a match in which they were 1-up with a hole to play, Scheffler said, “Yeah, especially in best-ball you have to hit good shots and make birdies down the stretch.

“Bryson made a good par on 15, which was more like a birdie. Made a nice birdie on 16. Got out of position on 18. Overall I’m pleased with how we played. I think we played really solid. A few mistakes here and there, but other than that, a really solid day.”

Emotions were pouring out as the pro-American crowd chanted. DeChambeau was asked how he could keep calm.

“It's going back to your bubble when you're about to hit a shot,” DeChambeau said, “doing your best to control your emotions in that way. I learned from Phil (Mickelson) in that, and I have a great partner and loved every minute of it and hope we can do it again soon. We are a good team, and we're going to dominate.”

Which for a day the U.S. squad also did. Criticism be damned.

No hate for Paul Casey in this Ryder Cup

September 23, 2021 by Art Spander in articles, golf

KOHLER, Wis. — Paul Casey never said, “Stupid Americans, I hate them.” That was a headline in The Mirror, a London tabloid.

But Casey did say during the 2004 Ryder Cup matches that he learned to “properly hate Americans and U.S. fans can be bloody annoying.”

Which was an interesting observation because Casey, while English, played at Arizona State (winning three consecutive Pac-12 championships, breaking Tiger Woods’ scoring record); previously was married to an American woman; lives most of the time in the United States (Scottsdale); and after competing on both sides of the Atlantic now limits himself to the PGA Tour.

He’s also playing the Ryder Cup for a fifth time, still for Europe, and at age 44 is wise enough not to make statements that can be considered as controversial as that historic remark.

Casey insisted he was not so much misquoted as misinterpreted — or was it an intentional mis-read by journalists seeking something not there?

A few months after the quote or misquote appeared, Casey was sitting in front of a couple of California sportswriters at Riviera Country Club in L.A. (Tommy Bonk and yours truly), contritely explaining his innocence.

He got carried away when discussing how important the Ryder Cup was to the Euros. And certainly the 43rd edition of the matches, Friday through Sunday at Whistling Straits along the shore of Lake Michigan, will keep him involved as much emotionally as physically.

The interesting part is so many members of the European squad, Jon Rahm, Sergio Garcia, Ian Poulter and Casey, play most of their golf in America. So, despite all the nationalism, the Ryder Cup is not much different than another week on Tour.

You have the weird stuff, the Euros acting like Packers fans — Green Bay is about 65 miles north — posing in cheeseheads and a group of Americans tromping along wearing Viking outfits. Not the Minnesota NFL team, but Leif Erikson-type attire. You also have cheering for missed putts, which is opposed to all the stuff we’re taught about sportsmanship in golf

At times, the event seems like a midnight party in New Orleans. But for the most part, it’s the same game that millions play, hitting a ball with a club, and not a club like that wielded by Erik the Red.

“It’s a lot of fun,” said U.S. team member Bryson DeChambeau of the Cup.

No question, it’s different with two days of team play, at both four balls and foursomes, the latter a style rarely seen in the U.S.

”I think the British always spent lots of time playing foursomes as kids,” said Casey. “It's just something we did in matches. It was always foursomes in the morning and singles in the afternoon. It's just something you do in club matches, county matches, even up to the international level.

“I don't believe there's any sort of tricks and tips or anything. It's just something I think we are a bit more used to. There are certain golf clubs in the U.K. where foursomes is a thing. You have to play foursomes if you want to go play. I don't know what to tell you.”

What he did tell us was how appreciative he is to be here — meaning the matches as well as the United States.

“There was a time pre-Paris,” he said. referring to the 2018 matches, “I thought I might never play another Ryder Cup, having missed a couple — more than a couple.

“I was quite emotional in Paris because of that gap. The form I had been through, and to be part of that great team in Paris, was just one of the most special moments of my career.”

The bloody, annoying Americans welcome you back.

DeChambeau: Big hitter with a big chance in the Cup

September 22, 2021 by Art Spander in golf, articles

KOHLER, Wis. — There’s a saying in baseball: any manager who can’t get along with a .340 hitter is in the wrong business.

Let’s modify that opinion: any golfer who can’t get along with a 380-yard driver is on the wrong Ryder Cup team.

Yes, Bryson DeChambeau, the not-so-incredible bulk, is occasionally a problem, perhaps a trifle egotistical and apparently feuding with Brooks Koepka.

But if he seems a disruption for the American team, the way he hits the ball DeChambeau should be a major disruption for the opposition, Europe.

Of the five matches in the Cup, four are team competition — either better ball, when scores of each player count, or alternate shot. Who wouldn’t want the chance to hit the approach after Bryson hits the tee ball out there around 400 yards?

We’re told one reason America has done so poorly in recent Ryder Cup play is that we’re a nation of individualists, each preferring to go his own way. Yet how important is it to love your teammate if you love the way he putts?

Besides, there’s no open hostility among the U.S. Cup players. They aren’t the Oakland Athletics of the 1970s — or the San Diego Padres of 2021.

When they swing at something, it is white with dimples, and Titleist or TaylorMade printed on its cover.

DeChambeau is as intriguing as he can be bewildering. He grew up in Clovis, Calif., near Fresno, also the home of quarterback Daryle Lamonica. And while Lamonica went to Notre Dame (understood for a football player) before the Raiders, DeChambeau went to Southern Methodist (surprising for a golfer) before the PGA Tour.

There was no question DeChambeau could play. In 2015, he became the fifth golfer to win the NCAA and U.S. Amateur in the same year. Five years later, after adding muscle and thus hitting to the outer limits, DeChambeau won the U.S. Open — which observers said with his style, emphasizing distance over accuracy, could never be accomplished.

So who’s to say anything is impossible for the 28-year-old DeChambeau? No matter with whom he might be paired in team play, even Koepka. Both of the men involved in the mini-antagonism insist they will be supportive teammates during the Ryder Cup.

“I'd say first off I feel like I'm a player that can adapt to anything if I have to,” said DeChambeau, “and I feel like there are certain players on our team that can mesh really, really well with my game, and you guys could probably figure that out.”

One guy who has to figure it out before play begins Friday is Steve Stricker, the U.S. team captain. In his more effective younger days, Stricker became a willing and able partner of Tiger Woods.

DeChambeau played in the Cup three years ago in France and lost all of his three matches. But, hey, Tiger never had much success when he played in the Ryder Cup.

“Leading into this event,” said DeChambeau, “I think part of hitting it far is some of why I am so successful and how I could utilize my length on this golf course to potential advantage.

“As well as I've been working on my wedging and putting nonstop. Thinking about how to roll it better, thinking about how to control my distances better with this new speed. It's definitely a delicate balance, but one that I am strictly advised pretty well on to do my absolute best in the Ryder Cup.”

Which certainly is all you could want of DeChambeau. Or anybody else.

”As we look at it, we have an amazing team that has an opportunity to do something special here this week,” said DeChambeau.

Big talk from a big hitter who has the opportunity to be a big man in the biggest of international matches in golf, the Ryder Cup.

Wherever Ryder Cup is, wrong place for U.S.

September 21, 2021 by Art Spander in articles, golf

KOHLER, Wis. — Wait a minute on the dateline for the Ryder Cup. You did read Kohler, Wis., but technically it’s not a postmark. And Haven, the place you enter on the road to the tournament, is unincorporated.

So, the Associated Press, official judge of such geographical decisions, says we’re in Sheboygan.

Maybe it’s all a trick to keep the European team from finding its way here, although if history is any yardstick the Euros will arrive and thus whip the good ol’ U.S. of A. as it does often in this international golf competition.

Or, with so many new kids on the roster, players such as Harris English and Tony Finau, the region known as America’s Dairyland will be the site of America’s revival.

True, the U.S. won the Cup the last time it was held in the U.S., 2016 near Minneapolis, but it has lost six of the previous eight, even with team members named Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson.

There are as many theories for the U.S. failures as there are bunkers at Whistling Straits, the course along Lake Michigan where the Cup matches will be played — a course that exists because of a rich man’s wishes.

We’re told Americans can’t play team golf. (You mean they don’t pass the ball around?) Or the Ryder Cup isn’t as important in the U.S. as it is in England, Spain and France and the other nations that make up the Europe team. Or, it isn’t as important as the Super Bowl. Or — and this one has traction — the Euros just outplay the U.S. when it matters.

One thing is definite: Whistling Straits is like no other course.

Herb Kohler, the wealthy individual who knows how to turn on and off the faucets of his plumbing supply company, went to Scotland, played lines courses and decided he would like to have his own.

The fact that linksland was formed by a receding sea thousands of years ago proved no limitation fo Kohler. He owned land along Lake Michigan a bit north of Milwaukee (and south of Green Bay), hired architect Pete Day and had his minions dump 5,000 truckloads of dirt.

A luxury hotel was built as part of a complex that now includes three courses, and for big events — the PGA Championship has been at the Straits three times — tournament big shots stay there.

The media, however, is based 60 miles away in Green Bay, where there is a football team that is known to perform more efficiently than American Ryder Cup teams.

Some caustic types have suggested that the Packers’ quarterback, a fine golfer his ownself, be put in charge of the U.S. Ryder Cuppers, but Steve Stricker, a native of Wisconsin, is the man this time.

“Europe brings a strong team, and they play well and are tough, and we always have tough matches that seem to have gone their way more times than ours lately,” Stricker said candidly.

"But we look to try to change that this week and move on. We are worried about this one, and just trying to win this one.”

As they should be.

Most of the top Euros have been at Whistling Straits. As have most Americans, including Dustin Johnson.

If you recall, Dustin Johnson had a chance to get into a playoff for the 2010 PGA Championship at the Straits, but he walked through a bunker and was penalized.

Johnson thought it was a waste area — a term that some might apply to many recent U.S. Ryder Cup performances.

A special vision of 9/11

September 08, 2021 by Art Spander in articles, tennis, sports and society

It was one of those classic East Coast thunderstorms, full of sound, fury and buckets of rain.

Even before the pilot announced the delay, it was obvious we would be stuck for a long while on the tarmac at JFK airport in New York.

My plans would have to change. Who could guess within hours the world was about to change?

It was Monday evening, Sept. 10, 2001. A day earlier, I had covered the men’s final of the U.S. Open tennis championships at Flushing Meadows, only a few miles from where our jet sat while the downpour continued.

Lleyton Hewitt, an Australian barely out of his teens, had crushed Pete Sampras. In the women’s final Saturday, then-dominant Venus Williams, 21, defeated younger sister Serena, still a few days from her 20th birthday.

A great Open, but now I was headed to another continent, Europe, for a few days of vacation in Italy followed by another sport, golf, the Ryder Cup at the Belfry in England. It all seemed so neat, so organized.

But the flight, to London’s Heathrow, was late. The flight to Florence, Italy, departed from another airport, Gatwick, to which I had to bus some 45 miles. It now was around noon in Britain. The next flight to Italy wouldn’t leave for hours.

The crowd in the waiting lounge moved toward one of the TV sets at the bar.

Jet-lagged and clueless, I asked someone what was happening. ”Oh,” he said unemotionally, “a plane hit a building in New York.”

What? I pushed through everyone to get a better look at a TV screen, a bit rude by British standards, dropping an occasional “Sorry,” just to show Americans had some manners.

The enormity of the disaster was becoming a reality. Flights throughout the U.S. had been halted. In Europe, some still were operating, My wife, a travel agent, had been in Rome and was aboard a train to Florence, unaware of the attacks.

This was 20 years ago, a lifetime technologically, before everyone from Katmandu to Kentucky had an iPhone. But there were cell phones, or as the Brits call them, mobile phones.

I had rented one for my wife in case of an emergency, never imagining the emergency would be an attack on the United States. I went to a pay phone in the terminal and connected to my wife as the train rolled.

The Ryder Cup, which used to be played in odd years, was postponed. Last autumn it was postponed again because of the Covid-19 outbreak, returning to the odd-year schedule, it will be held again in a couple weeks at Whistling Straits, north of Milwaukee.

A few times when I’ve been in New York for the Open, I’ve made a sobering visit to ground zero. There is a memorial fountain and the tattered, scorched remnant of an American flag pulled from the flames.

I made it to Italy the night of the attack on one of the last planes still permitted to fly, then on CNN watched as did millions of others all the news reports, depressed and frightened.

The next morning my wife and I shared a breakfast table in a plaza with an English couple, who expressed their condolences and asked whether America would respond.

Two decades later, there only are partial answers. I’m just grateful that on the afternoon of Sept. 10, 2001, I had the opportunity for one last look at the twin towers. The vision will stay forever.

Tiger, 0-4: ‘I’m one of the contributing factors why we lost the Ryder Cup’

September 30, 2018 by Art Spander in articles, golf

By Art Spander

SANT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France — It couldn’t have ended in a more appropriate fashion, a Phil Mickelson tee shot splashing into a pond, immediately followed by the European Ryder Cup team splashing Champagne to celebrate a victory that was inevitable.

Once more, an American team of stars — Phil and Tiger Woods, who didn’t score a measly point between them, and Dustin Johnson, a recent world’s No. 1, who at least did score a measly point — was beaten, make that overwhelmed, by Europe, this time 17½ to 10½.

You now can amend the adage; there’s nothing sure but death, taxes and an American defeat when the Ryder Cup is held on the far side of the Atlantic. This was the sixth straight time the Euros have won in Europe. Also the ninth time in 12 matches, wherever they have been played.

That the 48-year-old Mickelson, making a 12^th and surely farewell Ryder appearance, didn’t score in two matches at Le Golf National near Paris — one of those the Sunday singles — could be excused.

But what about Tiger getting blanked in all four of his matches? Or Johnson picking up only a single point in four matches? And that wasn’t in singles, where Sunday he was whipped by Ian Poulter.

Tiger, Phil and Dustin combined for one point of a possible nine, which is unimpressive even if the 42-year-old Woods is exhausted from his win a week ago, even if Mickelson has been slumping as he is aging, and even if Johnson reportedly has domestic problems.

“I did not play well this year,” conceded Mickelson. “This could very well, realistically, be my last one.”

America basically lost the Cup it had won two years ago at Hazeltine near Minneapolis after three sessions this time, when Europe made history by taking all of Friday’s alternate shot foursomes and then Saturday morning taking three of the four fourballs (or better balls).

For those who want to dodge reality and find wonderful French pastry in this mess, the U.S. trailing 10-6 before the 12 Sunday singles briefly cut the margin to 10½-9½. Hey, Gert, here they come. No, sorry. There they go again.

“It’s disappointing because I went 0-4,” said Woods candidly, “and that’s four points to the European team. And I’m one of the contributing factors why we lost the Cup, and it’s not fun.

“It’s frustrating because when we came here I thought we were all playing pretty well. I just didn’t perform at the level that I had been playing and just got behind early in the matches and never got back.”

Whether or not he was worn out, Woods said, “Yeah, I mean, I played seven out of nine weeks ... So a lot of big events, and a lot of focus, a lot of energy goes into it. I was fortunate enough to have won one, and we were all coming here on a high and feeling great about our games, about what we were doing, and excited about playing this week.”

But as Mickelson and the team captain, Jim Furyk, agreed, they were outplayed.

Patrick Reed, “Captain America,” got back a bit. He won Sunday. So did three other Americans, Cup rookie Justin Thomas (who beat Rory McIlroy), Wade Simpson and cup rookie Tony Finau. That was it for the red-in-the-face, white and blue.

Jordan Spieth? Crushed, 5 and 4, by a Swede named Thorbjorn Olesen, who has three fewer major victories than Jordan but Sunday had a lot more birdies, seven compared to Spieth’s two.

“I had some in-between numbers,” said Spieth of his yardages to the greens, meaning he was unsure what club to use. “And I didn’t really pick the right shot, and I got in trouble. Chipping let me down. I had a couple opportunities to save par and stay even, dropped to two, three down, and then he out-putted me.”

This from a 25-year-old who is known as a brilliant putter.

Road games bring out the best — or worst. Every course has 18 holes, but on the European Ryder Cup courses those holes are surrounded by huge crowds chanting “Ole, ole, ole….oh-le” and rattling the American pros. Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus never seemed to mind, but the new kids are bothered.

And Euro pros such as Olsen, Sergio Garcia and Poulter seem never to miss a putt in the Ryder Cup. The contention is the Euros bond better, but most of them, Poulter, Justin Rose, Jon Rahm, Henrik Stenson, play the U.S. PGA Tour. Besides, this isn’t basketball. You don’t pass a golf ball around. It’s an individual game, even when you have a partner.

“Let’s be honest,” said Mickelson. “The European side played some exquisite golf. I mean, it was some phenomenal golf, and they flat-out beat us.”

As they always do in Europe. Ole, ole, ole, ohh-le.

U.S. Ryder troubles: Phil sits out, Tiger shut out

September 29, 2018 by Art Spander in articles, golf

By Art Spander

SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France — Phil Mickelson sat out. Tiger Woods was shut out. And so two days into the Ryder Cup, that biennial golfing dilemma, America seems headed for another wipeout.

Phil and Tiger are not entirely to blame for the U.S. falling behind the Europeans, 10-6 — Patrick Reed and Byron DeChambeau also haven’t provided anything but disappointment — but Mickelson and Woods presumably were going to show the young guys how to win. Wrong!

Mickelson and DeChambeau were crushed Friday in foursomes, alternate shot, and Saturday U.S. captain Jim Furyk benched Phil, who in effect then contributed as much to the U.S. score as Woods.

In his three matches, a four-ball Friday with Reed, another four-ball Saturday with Reed and a foursome Saturday with DeChambeau, Tiger didn’t get a point, Of course, Reed and DeChambeau, his partners, are as much a reason.

It’s an old story — and, for America, a sad one. When the Cup is held in Europe, the U.S doesn’t win. Or hasn’t won the last five times. And unless the kids from the U.S. of A. can perform better in Sunday’s 12 singles matches than they have in the team format, the number will increase to six in a row. And if you’re counting, nine of the last 11, home or away.

Europe needs only 4 1/2 points from the 12 singles — a draw gets a half-point, a win a full point — to take the Cup.

American golf just doesn’t travel well. Maybe it’s jet lag. Or the food. Or the clever manner in which the European Tour sets up the course, as it prepared Le Golf National, some 20 miles from Paris, for these matches — narrow fairways and thick rough.

Then again, golf gets down to who makes the putts and, wow, the Euro team of British Open champ Francesco Molinari and U.S. Open runner-up Tommy Fleetwood — “Moliwood,” someone nicknamed them — have been making putts from everywhere. Small wonder they have won all four of their matches, only the second team of same players to win each of its four.

“You have to make birdies,” said Tiger. A week ago he made them to win for the first time in five years, the Tour Championship. He, along with Mickelson and DeChambeau, already had been selected by Furyk as captain’s picks, wild card. And the choices seemed brilliant.

But instead of getting birdies, the Americans are giving explanations.

“The three matches we played,” said Woods about facing Molinari-Fleetwood over the two days, “they never missed a putt inside 12 feet. That’s hard to do. Playing against a team like that, you have to make a lot of birdies, and we didn’t.”

Overseas, the Americans never do. Or haven’t since their last Ryder Cup road victory, 1993.

The Euros seem to draw strength and confidence from the team format. Sergio Garcia couldn’t win a major until last year’s Masters, but he was a terror in the Ryder Cup, a reason this time Euro captain Thomas Bjorn picked him despite playing Garcia having a relatively poor year.

“Everything feels pretty good,” Woods said about his game. “Just really pissed off at the fact I lost three matches and didn’t feel like I played poorly. That’s the frustrating thing about match play. We can play well and nothing can happen.”

You know the gripe: There’s no defense in golf. You can’t do anything to stop an opponent from playing well — shouting on his backswing is not proper etiquette. You just have to play better than he does. The Euros play better than the Americans do. It’s that simple.

“We need every single man on the course to do their bit,” said Bjorn, the Euro captain. “When you look at those 12 American names, that’s a strong lineup.”

Strength isn’t the issue at a Ryder Cup in Europe. Accuracy is required, finesse is required and most importantly a great putting touch is required. Getting to the green is a small factor. Getting into the cup is a big factor.

Americans Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas, both major champions, paired to win both fourballs and foursomes.

“It was great,” said Thomas. “We went out and did what we needed to do in both sessions, not just hit the shots when we needed to but make the putts when we needed to.”

They did. Other American golfers did not.

Furyk on U.S. Ryder Cup shutout: ‘I bet we’ll be fine’

September 28, 2018 by Art Spander in articles, golf

By Art Spander

SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France — It was historic. It was embarrassing. The supposedly unbeatable United States Ryder Cup team turned out to be as soft as a croissant.

Not only did it fail to win any of the four afternoon matches Friday on opening day of the 2018 Cup, it couldn’t even come close.

In the alternate-shot format that vexes Americans even more than trying to correctly pronounce “Chantilly” — one golfer hits the tee shot, his partner the next shot — the U.S. couldn’t extend any match beyond the 16^th hole.

So Europe, which lost three of the four-ball or better-ball matches in the morning, roared back to take a 5-3 lead and seemed destined to continue America’s frustration each time the biennial event is held on this side of the Atlantic. The U.S. hasn’t won in Europe since 1993.

With fans hooting and chanting as if they were at a soccer match and not a tournament at Le Golf National some 20 miles southwest of the Eiffel Tower, the Euros became the first team ever to record a shutout in alternate-shot, or foursomes, and the first to get a sweep in any session since 1989.

This wasn’t a match, it was a mismatch. It was Alabama against Arkansas State. It was bewildering, mystifying and nonsensical. The pairing of Phil Mickelson, at 48 surely playing his last Ryder Cup, and Bryson DeChambeau, at 25 playing his first, lost seven of the first eight holes, including five in a row to Sergio Garcia and Alex Noren.

On the 10^th tee, Mickelson-DeChambeau were 7 down. Or if you want to make a drink of it, Garcia and Noren were 7 up. That Mickelson-DeChambeau lost only 5 and 4 proves something, but what no one is sure.

Mickelson was a captain’s pick by Jim Furyk, who apparently wanted Phil’s experience (this is his 12^th Ryder Cup). Well, Mickelson now has a new experience with which he can relate: getting stomped.

Tiger Woods, another Furyk pick, didn’t play the afternoon alternate shots. In the morning, Tiger was paired with Patrick Reed, the Masters champion, and they were flattened by Tommy Fleetwood and Francesco Molinari, 3 and 1. A good job selecting by Furyk.

Of course, as the Euro captain Thomas Bjorn reminded, “The players play; we just try to get them ready.”

The U.S. hardly was ready for its collapse, or should it be Europe’s resurgence?

“They played great golf,” said Spieth of Fleetwood and Molinari. “Hats off to the Europeans. They were even or under par (in all four afternoon matches), and on this course, in that wind, that’s just fantastic in this format.”

You might presume that Furyk would be depressed the way his foursomes got whipped, but he carries a golfer’s eternal optimism, the belief that the next round will be, if not near perfect, then at least highly rewarding.

“In match play,” said Furyk, “you lose 6 and 5, you lose 2 and 1, it’s the same result. We have to shore things up. And I’m guessing we’ll switch things in the afternoon (Saturday). We’ve already been thinking about that.

“Does it pose a problem? I think our guys will respond. I really do. I have a lot of confidence in our guys. It’s going to leave a sour taste in their mouths, and they have to sleep on that. We’ll come back. I bet we’ll be fine.”

There are four more four-ball matches and four more foursomes Saturday. On Sunday, there are 12 singles. That used to be where the U.S. could be counted on to dominate, but in the 2012 Cup, in Chicago, it was the Euros who came from behind with victories in singles.

“There will be adjustments,” Spieth said of the alternate-shot session Saturday. “Foursomes, it’s a tough one. You know what team to throw out there.”

On Friday, whatever the team, it appeared to have been thrown under the bus.

“We knew it was going to be a grind,” said Rickie Fowler, who paired with Dustin Johnson was a 3 and 2 loser to Justin Rose and Henrik Stenson. “We struggled to get the momentum going, and when we did it was too late.”

It is no secret that the course was set up for the home team, narrow fairways to negate the power of people such as Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka. But the Americans should have been able to adapt.

“We thought this would be a good format for the tee shots,” said Mickelson, “hitting a bunch of irons off the tee. We just didn’t play our best.”

But the Euros did.

Ryder Cup is Phil Mickelson’s cup of coffee

September 27, 2018 by Art Spander in articles, golf

By Art Spander

SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France — The critic had mellowed. Or more accurately, swallowed. “The coffee here is unbelievable, isn’t it?” said Phil Mickelson, not waiting for an answer, as if anyone dared disagree.

“The chocolate,” Mickelson continued, “the food. I had two pieces of bread the other night. I can’t remember the last time I did that.”

Oh yes, Lefty, on stage, off the tee, full of opinions and occasionally himself, playing the game of life along with the game of golf, a personality with personality and one of the great short games.

He’s back for another Ryder Cup, his 12^th, knocking balls around Le Golf National, a course some 20 miles from Paris, rather than knocking anyone in charge of the U.S. squad, a veteran who knows what club to hit and knows what to say — even when, perhaps, he should remain silent.

“You would think I would get desensitized to it,” Mickelson said of his years as part of the American team, “but I have come to love and cherish these weeks even more, this week especially, with the amount of not just talented players but quality guys that are on our team.”

He is 48, a generation apart from teammates Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas and Bryson DeChambeau, nearly six years older than Tiger Woods, his longtime rival.

Along with Woods, Mickelson, or “Philly Mick” as they call him in New York, was a captain’s pick for this year’s team, chosen as much for reputation as performance — although in March he did get his first Tour victory in five years.

Phil was not playing in Friday morning’s four-balls, or better ball, as America tries to end a streak of five straight defeats in Europe, and Mickelson was asked if that happens, after his insistence on change following the loss four years ago in Scotland, would it be one of the crowning achievements in his career.

“I would not look at it that way,” said a magnanimous Mickelson, “because this is a team event and this is an event for all of us to cherish and be part of, and every person from the caddies, the spouses, the captains, vice captains and every player plays an integral part of the puzzle to do well and succeed.”

Of course, four years ago, when the U.S. was pummeled at Gleneagles, Scotland, it was one man, Mickelson, who found a reason and pressed to correct that. Mickelson said that Tom Watson, the captain that year — and for a second time, overall — was unable to communicate with his players and removed them from any part of the decision-making.

The PGA of America, which controls the Ryder Cup — not to be confused with the PGA Tour — took Mickelson’s advice, altered the method selecting wild-card players and the made other fixes. The plan worked, and in 2016 the U.S. won the Cup at Hazeltine, near Minneapolis.

In the 2004 Cup at Oakland Hills outside Detroit, Mickelson was paired with Woods, a dream team that turned into a nightmare. In foursomes, when players hit alternate shots with one ball, Phil might drive into the rough and a glowering Tiger would be forced to extricate the ball with the subsequent shot. They barely looked at each other.

But 14 years make a difference. Now Tiger and Phil, relative golden oldies compared to a Spieth or Brooks Koepka, have arranged to play each other in a multimillion-dollar match. And Phil said he willingly would join Tiger in this Ryder Cup, although U.S. captain Jim Furyk did not give his endorsement,

“I think when we (Woods and Mickelson) really started to work together to succeed,” said Phil, “going back in the Ryder Cup and the Presidents Cup, we have a lot more in common than we thought, and we came to appreciate working together to achieve things.”

If time doesn’t cure all ills, it does help change perspective. Woods and Mickelson have reached detente at a time in their careers when they can’t always reach the green of a par-5 in two shots.

“When we go over the little details as to why we were or were not successful,” said Mickelson, “it sometimes comes out like I’m taking a shot at somebody. I don’t want to do that anymore.”

Peace in our time.

Ryder Cup nastiness runneth over

September 26, 2018 by Art Spander in articles, golf

By Art Spander

SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France — Tiger Woods was talking about applause in golf. Or really the lack of it. “The art of the clap is gone,” said Woods. Fans have one hand wrapped around a cell phone and their minds wrapped around the idea of creating chaos.

In his advice to spectators — patrons, they’re called — at the Masters, the late Bobby Jones said it would be impolite and improper to cheer a competitor’s mistakes. Which brings us to the Ryder Cup, a tournament where virtually anything goes and everything is yelled, especially insults.

The Cup’s nastiness runneth over. And ain’t it wonderful?

It you’re not familiar with the Ryder Cup, it’s a biennial event that matches golfers from the United States against golfers from Europe, many of whom live at least part-time in the United States. The 2018 Cup is Friday through Sunday at Le Golf National, a course about 20 miles from Paris.

Nobody in America seemed to notice the Cup, much less care about it, until back in the early 1990s when, whoops, Europe, with players such as Seve Ballesteros, Ian Woosnam and Nick Faldo began to kick America’s you-know-what.

As Davis Love III, a player and then a two-time American captain, recalled, “I got home, and a friend had two questions: What’s the Ryder Cup and how did we lose it?”

With considerable regret, that’s how. All those handshakes at the close of the tournament cover up a great deal of deep-felt irritation that once became public in comments by Paul Casey.

In the Sunday Times of London, Casey was quoted as saying he learned to “properly hate” Americans during the Cup and went on to explain that U.S. fans can be “bloody annoying” and the vast majority of American fans don’t know what’s going on.

The story made its way to the tabloid Daily Mirror, where a headline quoted Casey as saying, “Stupid Americans. I hate them.” That Casey, an Englishman, attended Arizona State, was married to an American and is based in Arizona didn’t seem to matter.

Casey, who plays the U.S. PGA Tour, is back on the European Ryder team, saying very little, unfortunately.

It’s football season in the U.S. (also in Europe, if a different brand of football). The Cup can use a few vocal barbs to get attention.

The Euros have grumbled about the manner American fans acted and bellowed during the 2016 matches at Minneapolis. Surely there will be a response this time around.

Tom Watson, the Stanford guy and five-time British Open champion, gets some of the blame. The 1991 Ryder Cup was held at Kiawah Island in South Carolina shortly after the U.S. military operation Desert Storm. To whip up interest, Watson, the U.S. team captain, called the matches “The War by the Shore,” and the fans roared at every missed Euro putt.

Six years later, 1997, the Cup was in Spain, and the Americans were harassed as much as possible. The next chapter was in 1999 at The Country Club in Boston, when Justin Leonard of the U.S. sank an enormously long birdie putt near the end of day three and his U.S. teammates and some of their wives and girlfriends celebrated on the green — even though opponent José Maria Olazabal had yet to putt.

That was 19 years ago, but a writer from Scotland brought it up the other day. These people have long memories and sometimes short fuses.

Sergio Garcia, the Spaniard, is a captain’s pick. Through the years he’s also been a pain in the neck for the U.S., holing long putts at the most opportune times — or inopportune for the Americans.

Someone suggested the U.S. has copied the camaraderie long evident among the Euros. “It may seem they are doing a little bit better,” said Garcia. “I don’t know what goes on in their team room, but I know what goes on in ours. It comes easy. It comes naturally.

“Then we will go out there and play the best we can and make sure we have a shot at winning the Cup.”

From the American team, we hear the sound of one hand clapping.

Tiger to his young challengers: ‘Alright, here we go’

September 25, 2018 by Art Spander in articles, golf

By Art Spander

SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France — The hero who became the outcast again has become the hero, raising his sport as he raised his game, and turning back the clock as he turned away the skeptics.

Once more golf has been distilled to two words and one name, Tiger Woods, who was nearly lost in a crowd of enthralled fans as, for the first time in five years, he won a tournament, giving a new generation an idea of what he was like in the old days.

Now after a singular and — from the response in the TV ratings — wildly popular victory in the Tour Championship at Atlanta, Woods, along with some of the people he subdued, has crossed the ocean to play in the Ryder Cup, the biennial team competition between the U.S. and Europe.

That for the first time the Cup, Friday through Sunday, is being held in France, at Le Golf National, a course some 20 miles from Paris and maybe five miles from the glorious royal chateau of Versailles, seems appropriate.

One of golf’s more recent kings has been restored to his throne, and those involved in the game, even peripherally, are ecstatic. Why, during interviews on Tuesday, an American broadcaster, ignoring the dictum of no cheering in the press box, even figurative, thanked Woods “for all of us who earn our living in the golf business.”

Some journalists cringed. Tiger merely smiled in appreciation.

It all gets down to personalities in golf and tennis, to ladies such as Serena Williams, men such as Woods, whose simple presence — or absence — becomes a story.

Tiger, winning majors repeatedly, was an idol, if a distant one given the way he walked fairways without a wave or sideways glance. Then came the revelations about his womanizing, which alienated a percentage of his fans and the media. That was followed by surgery on his back, and who knew if he would play — or if he could play well?

The answer is in. U.S. Ryder Cup captain Jim Furyk’s decision in early August to add Woods to the 12-member squad was more than justified with Tiger’s victory, one achieved against players such as Brooks Koepka and Justin Thomas, who were not on Tour when Woods was in his prime.

When asked why one of Woods’ friends, Phil Gordon, said that Tiger just wanted the new kids on the block to feel the heat of facing him down the stretch of a back nine, Tiger had a ready explanation.

“Well. a lot of these guys were — well, the younger guys were on their way in when I was on my way out,” said the 43-year-old Woods, who of course, still very much is in. He was alluding to Thomas, Koepka and Jordan Spieth, in particular.

“You know, they never had played against me when I was playing well. It’s been, what, five years since I won a tournament?”

Now it hasn’t even been five days.

“I think that when my game is there,” said Woods, trying to temper his self-belief, “I’ve always been a tough person to beat. They have jokingly been saying, ‘We want to go against you.’

“Alright, here we go. And we had a run at it. And it was a blast, because I had beat Rory (McIlroy) head-up in the final group. Rosy (Justin Rose) was tied with Rory ... Those guys had both ascended to No. 1 in the world. They both have won major championships, and I have not played a whole lot of golf the last few years.”

He played a lot the last few months, taking leads in the British Open and PGA Championship, and then winning the Tour Championship. That put him face-to-face with an unfortunate aspect of a career with few unfortunate aspects, his record in the Ryder Cup. Only once in his seven appearances has Woods been part of a winning team.

“Yeah,” agreed Woods, “looking back on my entire Ryder Cup career, that’s one thing I’ve not really enjoyed or liked seeing. I’ve sat out one session. That was the last (team play) session at Medinah (2012). Otherwise I’ve played every match. We haven’t done very well.”

Not at all, but this 2019 team is one with Koepka, Spieth, Thomas, Phil Mickelson and Woods — who, for better or worse, is the guy who the game is all about.

Global Golf Post: Palmer's Memory Infuses Ryder Cup

October 03, 2016 by Art Spander in articles, golf

By Art Spander
Global Golf Post

CHASKA, MINNESOTA — The signature, with the oversized "A" and "P," was as familiar as that lurching swing, which finished with the club almost over his head.

There it was, that autograph, reproduced, huge on a billboard near the practice tee, and below the signature and the familiar umbrella logo were the printed instructions, "Please pay tribute to Mr. Palmer."

Read the full story here.

Los Angeles Times: U.S. wins Ryder Cup for first time since 2008

October 02, 2016 by Art Spander in articles, golf