Buddy calls fatally wounded American dream

There was nothing romantic about the manner of USA’s loss to Europe in Paris, the city of romance, or the divisions that have now emerged from within the camp following their comprehensive defeat by a better prepared and more unified European team.

We have been here before of course, as recently as 2014 when Phil Mickelson, now a veteran of 12 Ryder Cup matches, which includes nine defeats, roundly criticised his team captain Tom Watson in the post-match press conference. Mickelson slammed Watson’s authoritarian leadership model that he viewed as outdated and which left his team competitively disadvantaged.

His agitated comments set off a series of changes that radically reformed the US selection process for the Ryder Cup captaincy, including a succession model. It also created a more updated player selection process as well as a more modified playing system - built around the “pod model”, originally introduced so successfully by Paul Azinger in 2008 to allow the US team play their best golf.