MEDINAH, Ill. (AP) — Luke Donald picked a curious time to celebrate an anniversary. The second of 12 singles matches in the Presidents Cup had just teed off at Medinah when Europe’s two-time winning Ryder Cup captain posted a subtle reminder to the Americans.
“It’s hard to believe it’s already been a year since Bethpage,” Donald wrote, accompanied by a photo of his team posing with the Ryder Cup trophy.
And then the Americans proceeded to have a Bethpage moment by routing the opposition in singles, with a few important distinctions worth noting.
They faced a three-point deficit Sunday against an International team that had not won the Presidents Cup in 28 years.
The Americans faced a seven-point deficit last year at Bethpage Black against Team Europe, which has won the Ryder Cup 11 of the last 14 times. The only thing their record-tying singles performance did at Bethpage was make European fans sweat for a few minutes. The hole was too deep, the outcome all too familiar.
Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton of LIV Golf combined to go 6-2-1 last year. Because the PGA Tour owns and operates the Presidents Cup, the International team has no access to LIV Golf players. How much that matters is pure speculation, though the likes of Joaquin Niemann and Cameron Smith would not have hurt the cause.
Still, it was a good day for the Americans to celebrate a comeback ( but not a miracle ) at Medinah.
Winning nine of 11 matches — the other was halved after the Presidents Cup had been decided — is no small task. The emotion amid their celebration was a mixture of joy (winning is fun) and relief (they never lose).
U.S. captain Brandt Snedeker surely was caught up in the emotions of winning when he said: “I’m tired of hearing how these guys aren’t close. I’m tired of hearing how we can’t play team golf. Guys just proved it right then and there.”
Not really. They only proved their strength is in singles against an inferior lineup in a competition that doesn’t have the history or the pressure of the Ryder Cup.
Team golf has nothing to do with being close. The Americans like one another, certainly over seven days, and that’s no different from European teams.
It’s about getting the formula right, finding what works and sticking with it. Rahm and Hatton have gone 4-0 in foursomes the last two Ryder Cups and had different partners for fourballs. Ditto for Rory McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood — four wins in foursomes, different partners in fourballs.
Collin Morikawa is among five players to be on the last five American teams. Wyndham Clark was his eighth partner in team matches dating to 2022.
Scottie Scheffler and Sam Burns were 0-3-1 as partners in two previous cups. They were sent out three times at Medinah and went 2-1-0, both tight matches.
Scheffler now is 9-12-4 in his six appearances in the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup, and that record was helped by a 3-1-0 week at Medinah. It’s a mystery, not too dissimilar from Tiger Woods in the Ryder Cup. Woods was a beast in match play. Scheffler had a 15-4-2 mark in the Match Play Championship, reaching the semifinals all three years he played and winning once.
Whether the Americans playing a team event every year helps or hurts depends on the outcome and the mood. Woods used to talk about two cups as a burden, even though they were among his favorite weeks of the year because of the team setting.
Foursomes remains a weakness for the Americans, but they have the most experience from playing it every year. There’s also the notion Europe is champing at the bit from having to wait two years, win or lose, while the Presidents Cup gives the Americans a false sense of hope.
The format looks the same. The cups are nothing alike.
Snedeker had said going into Medinah that while the Americans had won 10 in a row, his group of 12 players “have accomplished nothing.”
He ended the week by telling SiriusXM amid the euphoria of being the winning captain, “This team is going to be a problem in Ireland.”
A problem for whom?
What makes Snedeker think the 2027 team for the Ryder Cup — qualifying doesn’t even start until January — will have any momentum going to Adare Manor against a team that hasn’t lost on home soil since 1989, before any of the current American players were even born?
Jim Furyk returns as Ryder Cup captain for Adare Manor next year. He was the losing captain in France in 2018, and he was one of Snedeker’s assistants at Medinah. Justin Thomas has played on more teams (eight) than anyone else on this U.S. squad.
Neither had an immediate answer when asked if there was anything from the Presidents Cup that could be applied to the Ryder Cup. Maybe that’s just as well.
Players often talk about learning more from losing than winning. If that’s true, the Americans might be better off leaning into what went wrong at Bethpage instead of what went right at Medinah.
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