Golf: America's star-mangled banner

The American team look far from happy at the closing ceremony of the Ryder Cup. Picture / Reuters

Sandy Lyle's tongue happened to be nowhere near his cheek when he suggested yesterday that Europe should be handicapped in future Ryder Cups and that maybe the United States could be allowed to pick Canadians as well to ensure the matches are more even. Ian Woosnam's assistant captain was deadly serious. And that just about sums it all up.

Even the ridiculous suddenly sounds feasible in this most surreal of aftermaths. When a solid man of such unwavering conviction as Tom Lehman starts querying everything around him, you know the US's fabled faith in their own superiority is being stretched to breaking point. They are scarred after being striped and that starry banner is more mangled than spangled. A third Ryder Cup humbling in succession has seen to it.

Is there something they can do better to avoid another drubbing in Kentucky in two years' time? That is the central question in an inquest overloaded with them. Here we attempt to answer the most impertinent.

Isn't the captain to blame, just like that bloke in a cowboy hat two years ago when they also lost big?

Lehman isn't. He is no Hal Sutton. In fact, looking back to Oakland Hills with this benefit of K Club hindsight, Hal Sutton is no Hal Sutton. He can now be viewed as the invention of a disbelieving audience desperate for a scapegoat. Lehman's tactics were certainly more astute than Sutton's game plan of gung-ho numbskullery but the endgame was the same.

There were a few mistakes made - as there were by Woosnam - primarily his baffling decision to play his wild card, Scott Verplank, only twice (he won both), his hesitancy in allowing rookie JJ Henry to carry on riding the crest of his wave and his refusal to break up the Phil Mickelson-Chris DiMarco partnership that was so obviously not working.

But even with perfect captaincy, the US's total would have been increased by only as much as two points. And then their inferiority would have been masked. Americans must disabuse themselves of the notion of their leader's omnipotence.

Perhaps the sight of Terrific Tom emulating Hapless Hal will help them. But didn't he make it his mission to instil a team ethic into this ragbag of individuals - and fail?

Not really. One of the many theories to explain American incompetence can now be scotched: It has nothing to do with their not getting on together. They proved that they were a pretty tight unit by making an unprecedented trip to the K Club a month before the match and in those few days, as indeed, in the entirety of the last week there was no reason whatsoever to speculate about any internal tension in the camp.

David Toms said at vital moments partners did not lift each other adequately but that hardly suggests a complete absence of team spirit.

So why did they look so miserable on the course then?

Ah, now you are getting warm, as this is what Lehman saw as the crux of their problem and still does. The captain was telling anyone who cared to listen that his aim was to get Americans to enjoy themselves at the Ryder Cup, not as in hanging out together, but in the heat of competition.

"When they get inside the ropes, our team have looked scared to death," he opined. "We've got to have fun out there playing and I've got to make sure we do." That grimaced image of Tiger Woods on the first tee of the opening round must have instantly confirmed Lehman's worst fears that he had not managed to.

"Playing tight," they call it in golf; when the anxious muscles constrict and the flexibility so vital in the golf swing is compromised. You could see this ghastly phenomenon manifesting itself through Woods' taut expression. They all looked like they wanted it too much.

So you are also discounting the theory that Europe cares more about the cup than their opponents?

Pub talk. See Woods' pain when the putts weren't dropping or DiMarco's quite frankly daft denial that his "dead rubber" against Lee Westwood was over when he stuck two balls in the drink on the last. Of course, it is the simpering grin of Mickelson that the critics always hold up as an example of the indifference but, in truth, the golden boy does not look any different at Augusta or at any of the majors. If the "couldn't-care-less" theorists are determined to keep pressing their case, then they would be far better off analysing the way he approaches a major in comparison to a Ryder Cup. At the former, he will undertake eight-hour practice rounds and come up with a shot for almost every scenario. At the latter, he whipped around in three to four hours and the nature of his usual preparation was in no way replicated.

They aren't team players, are they?

Probably not but in the US this is a curse that runs through the whole of sport. On Monday, the American Davis Cup team were crashing out to Russia, compounding a year of under-achievement that includes flops at the world basketball championships and the world baseball championships, the two sports they pride themselves on being the best in.

So what stops their whole consistently not coming close to the sum of their parts? Is it the culture of the individual that pervades their society, the emphasis on what "you" can do rather than what "we" can do?

A certain Michael Jordan thinks so. The basketball legend walked every yard of the K Club as he followed his friend Tiger and was forthcoming in his views.

"Maybe we don't play team sports well because even in those all you hear about growing up is how you can't ever count on anybody but yourself," he said. "Over here, they play one basketball game a week and practice for five. We play three nights out of seven or more. And what do you see every time you turn on the TV? Highlights. Somebody doing something spectacular and, usually, it looks like he's doing it by himself.

"After watching that, what kid is going to work on fundamentals - passing, setting up team-mates, stuff like that?"

There must be a reason for it. So what is it then?

Almost certainly a collection of factors including their inability to gel in partnerships and a tour which breeds millionaires before it breeds winners. But Lehman stressed things happen in cycles. "There will be a time when we'll be sitting here saying to the Europeans, you know, this Ryder Cup is in trouble, because the American team is on top," he said. "That will happen." Although probably not soon.

Not in 2008 then?

No, because this European team is really that good that the US will need at least three or four world-class players to emerge to boast a comparative strength in depth. Darren Clarke said he doubted it would ever occur again that every player arrived on match week with their A-game in tow but with the other veterans, Colin Montgomerie and Jose Maria Olazabal, he warned the likes of Paul Casey, Luke Donald, Sergio Garcia, David Howell, and Henrik Stenson are only going to get better.

What the US and Paul Azinger, their prospective new captain, must first aim for is a contest. Another walkover and it must be feared how long the American public, TV networks and sponsors will carry on shelling out the dollars for an event that they lose so embarrassingly on a biennial basis.

Understandably, there is a tremendous backlash awaiting as the nation turns on a bunch of millionaires they accuse of having no heart, pride or hunger for the greater cause. As one American newspaper put it "these chickens will get fried in Kentucky as well". More finger flicking than finger licking.

- INDEPENDENT