Seven years have passed since our last Ryder Cup triumph, at Brookline in 1999, and even that victory required a miraculous Justin Leonard bomb putt to cap a highly improbable final-day comeback in singles play. The point is that if we are under the impression that we are close to breaking through, or that European golfing hegemony is a myth, then we should wake up to reality. Our personnel were quite carefully selected this time around-much like the LeBron-Carmelo-Wade trio for men's basketball-in an attempt to avenge our loss on home soil in 2004. Tom Lehman did all a captain can do, arranging an unprecedented overseas full-team practice session two weeks before the tournament, showing the team inspirational clips from the movie Miracle, and pairing his players with some measure of intelligence, as opposed to 2004 captain Hal Sutton, who stuck with the ill-fated Mickelson-Woods pairing. And still, we lost 18.5-9.5, tying the historic defeat margin from two years ago. It got so bad that the Europeans conceded an impossible putt on the last hole just so we wouldn't set the loss record outright.
In sports it is normally the nature of things that a desperate underdog, down by a significant margin near the end of play, with a lot at stake (playoff standing, national pride, etc.) will close strong. By this logic, it was reasonable to expect our golfers to storm out of the gate on the final morning in fateful singles play to at least render the loss margin respectable, particularly with a stacked lineup that Lehman crafted to increase the likelihood of exactly that outcome. And yet, I turned on the television coverage Sunday morning to discover just the opposite: the singles leaderboard was covered in European flags. The team nearly assured of victory was dominating. The capacity for this sort of dominance requires a special kind of complete one-sidedness.
There is no great explanation for this result, but I'll offer a few observations. Of Tiger's 354 putting attempts inside three feet on the PGA Tour this year, he made all 354. But the first three footer I saw him attempt this weekend, he missed. Phil Mickelson, who smiles and stumbles his way to loss after Ryder Cup loss, couldn't win a match in foursome teams if he were paired with God. There is no cure for Mickelson's inborn lack of competitive spirit and killer instinct. The closest thing to Mickelson's alter ego is Sergio Garcia, who has amassed a remarkable winning record in Ryder Cup play for the European side. Stewart Cink, one of Lehman's captain picks, didn't contribute anything until his final-day singles win. Straight-hitting Davis Love III would have been a wiser pick. The biggest strategic error Lehman made all weekend was failing to shake up the core of the team's losing sickness: any pairing that included Mickelson. I don't care that he is the number-two player in the world, or that he is a nice guy. He can't win in these matches, so he should sit. Lehman himself could have removed his walkie-talkie, taken one practice swing, and fared better in competition than Phil. Alternatively, Lehman could have given more playing time to youngsters J.J. Henry and Zach Johnson. Henry at least grimaced after missing a decisive putt in fourball play, which shows that he cares. And Johnson built a serious birdie streak the same day, carrying his pairing to a win. Both were more solid than Mickelson, DiMarco and David Toms.
In the wake of the loss, opinions abound. Toms thinks teamwork was lacking, Woods thinks putting was the problem, Lehman is at a loss for words, and some writers maintain that the Europeans are just better. The answer is probably a combination of the above. But the truth is that any team led by a fully motivated Tiger Woods should have a chance. Keep Woods and teammate Jim Furyk, and surround them with the best, most competitive young talent. Next time we can't do much worse than 18.5-9.5.
Monday night every day gets old
I love ESPN because it is the best medium for sports news. But the network's shameless self-promotion has reached an unacceptable level. We know you are excited to air your first season of Monday Night Football, but must we hear on Tuesday morning that there are only 154 more hours until the next installment of MNF? When your MNF ads center on the message "Don't worry; only six days to Monday," do you really think that we spend Tuesday or even Sunday planning our MNF couch time? Even the most pathetic, lifeless sports fans have something to think about Tuesday morning besides a game between two random teams six days in the future. Must you air every Monday show from the site of that night's MNF game? The only thing worse than the MNF countdown ads is when the bottom-line ticker reminds us that there are only 17 hours until the next live telecast of poker, which doesn't meet the athletic standard of spelling bees, much less ping pong, golf or auto racing. If you want to count us down to poker, how about counting us down to the next all-new "Dream Job," the show whose winner achieves the ultimate career: a job on your network. ESPN may run some of our lives, but they shouldn't act as if they know it. Just as Facebook's news feed crossed a line, the MNF ads are insidious. We shouldn't be thinking about the next MNF on Tuesday morning. And if we are, then we needn't be reminded of it, for it's degenerate, not laudable. I can handle the 25-minute MNF overkill pre-game show, capped by the absurd graphic designed for melodrama, time-killing and extra ad time. Just leave us alone Tuesday morning.