Walloping in Whistllng Straits leaves Euro captain Harrington in the rough

Inside Track with John McIntyre

WELL, that was some anti-climax in Whistling Straits. After all the hype and months of build-up, the delayed 2020 Ryder Cup turned into an embarrassing turkey shoot as the USA inflicted a humiliating record-breaking 19-9 defeat on the out-of-sorts Europeans.

The home triumph was hardly unexpected, but the scale of it was. From the opening foursomes last Friday morning, Padraig Harrington’s team was vainly playing catch up. Only for the exploits of the Spanish armada in Jon Rahm and Sergio Garcia over the opening two days, the match could have been over by Sunday’s 12 singles.

As it was, the European goose was already cooked heading into the final day’s play. Trailing by 11-5 and with most of their team even to register a half-point, the omens were not good for a heroic comeback along the lines of what happened in Medinah in 2012. The prospect of winning nine of the 12 singles was just fanciful in any event given the superb form of the Americans.

Though Rory McIlroy, who had a nightmare experience over the opening two days – not even getting to the 16th tee box in any of his three outings – salvaged some pride in winning the top match against Xander Schauffele (3&2), it was soon a sea of red in the other singles which the USA ended up winning 8-4.

True, an American success was overdue – they hadn’t won the Ryder Cup since 2016 and had lost all bar two of the last nine matches – but so many of the Europeans were below par over the three days that it killed any prospect of any late drama or thrills. It was just so one-sided with Dustin Johnson becoming only the third golfer in the history of the Ryder Cup to win all his five matches.

With an average age of only 29 and eight of their team in the World’s top 10, it was set up for the USA to inflict some overdue misery on the Europeans, but few expected that they would be so dominant; so superior. The body language of some of the European players wasn’t good – notably McIlroy’s – and you never got the sense that the holders believed that they could turn it around.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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