Euros survive unexpected thriller

Despite a spirited American comeback bid, Europe wins road Ryder Cup

Shane Lowry and Tyrrell Hatton lifted Euros with the tying and clinching halves (Harry How/Getty Images)

After a record-setting team performance over the first two days and a half point from a split match when Viktor Hovland was unable to play with a neck injury, Europe needed only 2½ points out of 11 singles matches on Sunday to win the Ryder Cup on the road at Bethpage Black.

At one point early, Europe led in nine of the 11 singles, including each of the first five. It looked like they would get it done easy and early.

It was not easy. Cameron Young and Justin Thomas birdied 18 in the first two matches to win 1 up over Justin Rose and Tommy Fleetwood. Bryson DeChambeau rallied from 5 down to get a half point off Matt Fitzpatrick.

The red wave continued with Xander Schauffele taking out Jon Rahm, Scottie Scheffler winning 1-up on Rory McIlroy and J.J. Spaun closing out Sepp Straka.

The lone sliver of blue on the leaderboard came from Ludvig Åberg taking out Patrick Cantlay, 2 and 1. It would be the only European singles win of the day.

Suddenly the Ryder Cup was down to the last four matches on the course, and the Americans didn’t trail in any of them. Europe desperately needed a half a point to retain the Ryder Cup and another half to win it.

“Walking down the sixth hole, it was all blue,” Shane Lowry said of the leaderboard. “I was like, this is great. I was like, who is going to get the winning point? I wasn’t getting complacent but the U.S. obviously did a great job. They turned the tide and you could feel the momentum switch. We could hear the roars from 18 way off the course. It was just something else.”

Lowry came to the rescue. He was 2 down to Russell Henley walking off the 14th hole and the three matches behind him were all tied. He birdied 15 and 16 to get to 1 down and Henley missed a 10-footer to win the match on 17. When Henley left another 10-footer short to win on 18, Lowry stepped in and buried a 6-footer for birdie and the half point that secured retention of the cup.

Shane Lowry birdied 3 of the last 4 holes when it mattered (Michael Reaves/PGA of America)

“That was the hardest couple of hours of my whole life, honestly. I just can’t believe that putt went in,” said Lowry, who leapt 4 feet in the air in a jubilant celebration. “I said to Darren (Reynolds, his caddie) walking down 18, I said, ‘I have a chance to do the coolest thing in my life here.’ The Ryder Cup means everything to me. Honestly, I’ve won the Open in Ireland; it’s amazing, it’s a dream come true. But the Ryder Cup for me is everything.

“To do that there today on the 18th green in front of everyone —it was so hard out there. I mean, fair play to the U.S. lads; we knew they were going to come out fighting. But yeah, I just hope one of the boys can get a half point so we can get the win. Obviously we’ve retained the Cup, but we want to win as well.”

Tyrrell Hatton got the additional half point later to official clinch victory and a bonus tie from Robert MacIntyre in the anchor match when Sam Burns bogeyed the 18th.

Europe earned the Ryder Cup on the first two days by winning every session and building and 11½-4½ lead on the backs of its biggest stars — McIlroy (3-0-1), Rahm (3-1) and Fleetwood (4-0) — before each lost in singles.

“You absolutely need your big guns to fire, and that’s what we are proud of, that the U.S. guys’ big guys, their guns, they didn’t get as many points as ours,” said back-to-back winning captain Luke Donald.

It would be unfair to pin what turned out to be far more competitive Ryder Cup defeat on Scottie Scheffler, whose baffling 0-4 team record helped big a hole that was too big too overcome.

Scheffler played better than those numbers indicate, but not as well as the ones that saw him post 15 consecutive top-eight finishes on the PGA Tour, including six victories and two major championships.

He didn’t get a lot of help from partner Henley and he and Bryson DeChambeau ran into the freight train that was Fleetwood and Rose who made 12 birdies in 16 holes on Saturday afternoon.

Still … 0-4?

“It was probably one of the lowest moments of my career,” Scheffler admitted.

World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler went just 1-4 for Team USA (Scott Taetsch/PGA of America)

Expectations were high for Scheffler to lead the Americans to victory. He can only account for so many points. And captain Keegan Bradley will undoubtedly be taken to task for his decision to send Collin Morikawa and Harris English out on Saturday for a futile foursomes match after getting throttled a day earlier.

But even with that decision or any others you want to question, the bottom line is this: if Scheffler is on the winning end of just two of those four team defeats, the U.S. wins the Ryder Cup by the same 15-13 score.

While the “if” game can be played forever on end, you can’t second-guess various pairings without stating that cruel reality. Throw in DeChambeau at 1-3-1 and the top players on the U.S. side combined to go 2-7-1.

Now you know what it was like when Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson couldn’t get it done at the Ryder Cup, either.

On Saturday night, down by seven, Bradley was asked a question about the shock of Scheffler’s record. And he told a story about Henley, who partnered with Scheffler for two of the matches.

“He said Scottie had the weight of the world on his shoulders, he’s the No. 1 player in the world,” Bradley said. “And he cared more about how Russell was doing than himself. Scottie has been the best teammate in our team room this week, without question, period. He has been open to any pairing. He has been open to play any session — five, four, two — didn’t matter.

“He was one of the first people that said that we’re going to go to Napa to play and be prepared. This means everything to him.

“This is tough. This is what happens in sports all the time. In golf, the moment you want something so bad and you try so hard, you don’t play as well. And when you’re kind of free-wheeling it, and I know how it is when you get off to a bad start in a Ryder Cup. You really desperately want to help the team, and I’ve been out there with Scottie, he’s played great. He flew one in the hole (Saturday) and it popped out and came off the green. We’ve had some wacky stuff go on.”

Woods was always accused of not caring enough. He amazingly never had a winning record after the very first day of his Ryder Cup career in 1997, finishing 13-21-1. Woods, until later in his career, always seemed indifferent about the Ryder Cup. He once replied to a question about his record by asking the inquisitor what Jack Nicklaus’ Ryder Cup record was. (For the record, it was 17-8-3). The point is it’s not something that comes readily to mind.

But Scheffler cares. He cried in Rome after that humiliating 9-and-7 loss with Koepka. And there were tears in his eyes on Sunday when being interviewed post round following his victory over McIlroy.

“I think it’s hard to put into words how much it hurts to lose all four matches,” Scheffler said. “To have the trust of my captains and teammates to go out there and play all four matches and lose all four, it’s really hard to put into words how much that stings and hurts.

“I’ll go back and reflect on that. But one of the coolest things was these guys picking me up last night. The guys on this team, this is a really special group of guys. We have a special captain, and I was proud to be standing there fighting with these guys today.

“I think it showed a lot about our team. I think it showed a lot about the job all these guys did to put us in a position to succeed.”

It’s hard outcome Scheffler will have to live with in a year that was so good to him otherwise.

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Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry combined for 5.5 points (Scott Taetsch/PGA of America via Getty Images)

From tears to jeers, Irishmen deliver

FARMINGDALE, N.Y. — Four years ago on the banks of Lake Michigan, Rory McIlroy was in tears. A lone singles point did little to salve the sting of the most lopsided defeat in the European era of the Ryder Cup.

A younger McIlroy who once dismissed the Ryder Cup as an “exhibition” had yielded to an older and wiser Northern Irishman who understood it was so much more.

“There’s nothing better than being a part of a team, especially the bond we have in Europe,” McIlroy said in 2021. “No matter what happens after this, I’m proud of every single one of our players, our captain, our vice captains. I just wish I could have done a little more for the team. It’s been a tough week.

“I should have done more for them this week ... I can’t wait to get another shot at this.”

At Whistling Straits, the youngest American team in Ryder Cup history delivered a decisive message with a record 10-point victory over Pádraig Harrington’s team of veterans from Europe who were aging out. A new generation of fearless, talented and scar-free Americans were cycling in with seemingly greater numbers than their European rivals.

“This is a new era for USA golf,” 2021 U.S. captain Steve Stricker said after the 19-9 shellacking. “They are young. They come with a lot of passion, a lot of energy, a lot of game. They are just so good.”

The Europeans, however, refused to accept that narrative and were eager to apply new scars to their American rivals. The sting of that moment stirred something inside McIlroy, whose 1-3 performance in Wisconsin drew emotion no individual heartbreak had.

“I was emotional because it’s a highly charged event and it sucks to lose, it really does,” McIlroy said then. “It sucks, and you know, listening to, ‘We’re the Champions’ out there and those guys celebrating, if we have an opportunity in Rome, hopefully I’m on that team and it will make getting that Cup back even sweeter.”

Two years later, it was Europe who came in with fresh new faces and a new skipper and flipped the script with a decisive victory at Marco Simone. The champagne hadn’t dried on their shirts before McIlroy immediately set sights on a new horizon – winning an away Ryder Cup in New York.

After all, if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.

“Look, I said that in the euphoria of winning a Ryder Cup, but I really felt like we had definitely way more of a chance than we had in Whistling Straits in 2021,” McIlroy said Sunday night at Bethpage Black. “So I was bullish about our chances.”

Despite abusive fans and a spirited fightback from the Americans to almost register the greatest comeback in Ryder Cup history, Shane Lowry – a rookie on that team at Whistling Straits – blocked the door with three birdies in the last four holes including a nervy 6-footer on the last to secure retention of the Ryder Cup and an eventual 15-13 victory.

“This is the best team in the world,” a jubilant Lowry said. “I don’t care what anyone says. This is the best tournament in the world. This is the only thing I want to do for the rest of my life.”

Rory McIlroy basks in an historic road victory (Maddie Meyer/PGA of America)

It’s a far cry from Whistling Straits.

“To do something that a lot of people thought that we couldn’t do – I mean, the comments and what people were saying after Whistling Straits about the decades of American dominance, that was – we took a lot from that,” McIlroy said. “We let that fuel us, and we got so lucky in getting an incredible leader in Luke Donald. He shepherded us through this process and he’s been absolutely amazing. A lot of the credit has to go down to him. Eleven of the 12 players from Rome came back. We did what we needed to do and we are going to celebrate like there’s no tomorrow.

“When you think about the last away Ryder Cup about what people were saying about decades of American dominance, whether it was home for them or away, and to be able to do what we’ve done in Rome and then here, you know, it shut a lot of people up.”

Europe will go for three straight wins at Adare Manor in 2027, where it will be the Americans’ turn to figure out how to win a road Ryder Cup for the first time in 34 years since 1993 at The Belfry.

“Let’s do it again in Ireland,” said Lowry.

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U.S. captain Keegan Bradley will get second-guessed for various decisions (Darren Carroll/PGA of America)

Ryder Cup 2025? It’s complicated

By Alex Miceli

FARMINGDALE, N.Y. — It’s difficult to explain the 45th Ryder Cup.

It started with two days of team play, where the Europeans grew what many would call an insurmountable seven-point lead going into Sunday singles. It was a lead that had never been seen in Ryder Cup history since the Europeans joined the fray in 1979.

Considering the most singles points won by either side was 8.5 points, the Americans’ chances of a victory were deemed impossible.

Needing just three points to gain the 14.5 points necessary to win the Ryder Cup for the sixth time in eight matches, those same Europeans would win only one of the 12 singles matches, a historic low. But it got just enough to make European captain Luke Donald one of only two captains from across the pond to win consecutive Ryder Cups, joining Tony Jacklin.

The 15-13 final score would lead a bystander to conclude that the Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black was competitive, which could not be further from the truth.

It was two days of a landslide in Europe, during which America’s efforts and plans were questioned.

On Sunday, it was a tired European team against a U.S. squad that played as if its back was against the wall — because it was.

The ultimate 15-13 score offered hope to both sides at different times over the three days, but questions still abound for a U.S. team that tied for the most points earned in singles.

However, as much as Bradley and the 12 American players believed the loss was a combination of missed putts and a poor setup by the captain, it’s really more than that.

Examining history, Europeans have been known for their consistent ability to make more putts than their opponents.

But when those putts that are elusive to the Americans are made over and over again at Celtic Manor, Medinah, Gleneagles, Le Golf National, Marco Simone and Bethpage Black, you have to give the Europeans their due not only for making the putts, but for continuing to take the initiative.

There is no single answer for why Europeans have won nine of the last 12 Ryder Cups in the 21st century.

Of course, they made putts. But why? You have to look at a combination of attributes that translate to a level of intensity that the U.S. teams have continually been hard to find.

Over time, the analysis of both the European and U.S. teams’ performance will be scrutinized. Some answers may be found, but the biggest question is how the U.S. team finds a way to win on foreign soil.

For those who need a refresher, the last U.S. win abroad was in 1993.