Singles victories a must if Europe are to win

A CURIOUS feature of the Ryder Cup over the past 20 years is that

Europe has fared better in the fourball and foursomes matches while the US has shone in the last-day singles.

As a result, the challenge for both teams in this week’s 34th Ryder Cup at The Belfry will be to play a stronger hand in their supposedly weaker department.

Colin Montgomerie, the seven-times European number one, would love to see his team reverse their losing trend in singles matches over the years. “We always tend to be sort of level or up after the Saturday evening (following the team matches),” he said. “And then America tends to be better in the singles.

“We’ve won very few singles series, if you like, over the last 20 years. Let’s hope we can change that this time.”

The United States has led going into the last-day singles matches only once in seven Ryder Cups since 1985. At Valderrama in 1997 and the Brookline in 1999, the Americans trailed by five and four points respectively after the second day.

But they managed to bounce back on both occasions, winning eight points out of a possible 12 in 1997 and eight-and-a-half points out of 12 in 1999.

There is a simplistic reason for the contrasting success rates between the two sides in the biennial competition. European golfers tend to socialise a great deal more on their home tour and therefore find it easier to blend together as a team, while the Americans are more comfortable in the heat of one-on-one battle.

“It’s actually very easy for us,” said Montgomerie, who is playing in his sixth Ryder Cup. “We tend, as a European Tour, to travel more as a group of players as opposed, as I do, when I’m playing in America. And we tend to share courtesy cars, we share airplanes, we tend to meet up in the bars and hotels in the evenings before going out to dinner. We are closer, I believe anyway, than the American Tour in general.

“And I feel it’s easier for us to help each other out and play alongside each other. We tend to do well in the team format and then, in the singles, it goes more on a world-rankings basis.”

World number two Phil Mickelson, who is unbeaten in three Ryder Cup singles matches since making his debut at Oakhill in 1995, believes the ethos of the team is overplayed. “I think it’s more important to shoot low scores. But we seem to use the concept of team as a motivating factor for us, as we did in 99 when we had a comeback that had never been done before in the history of the matches.”