So why can’t America win the Ryder Cup?

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The American team hasn’t won the Ryder Cup since 2008. Before that, it was 1999. So why can’t they perform in this event like they do individually on the PGA Tour? 

They even brought back Tom Watson, at 65 the oldest captain in Ryder Cup history and the last American captain to win on European soil. Watson made a series of questionable moves during team play and the Americans didn’t have much hope on Sunday. 

Watson attributed the loss to foursomes — Europe was unbeaten in both sessions and collected seven of the eight points — though McGinley wrote that off as a fluke.

Asked what he would tell his team in a final meeting, Watson said, “You played your best, but it wasn’t enough. You’ve got to find out what it takes a little better.” Watson didn’t find it. 

Except for a victory at Valhalla behind captain Paul Azinger in 2008, the Americans haven’t solved this Ryder Cup puzzle. Phil Mickelson, on the bench for both sessions Saturday, finished off a 2-1 week by beating Stephen Gallacher. Asked about the future of the Ryder Cup, Mickelson went back to that last US victory. 

He said: ‘There were two things that allowed us to play our best that Paul Azinger did. First, he got everybody invested in the process. He got everybody invested in who they were going to play with, who the picks were going to be, who was going to be in their ‘pod’, when they would play, and they had a great leader for each pod. We hung out together. 

‘The other things that Paul did really well was he had a game plan for us – how we were going to go about doing this, how we were going to go about playing together, if so-and-so is playing well, if so-and-so is not playing well. Those two things helped us bring out our best golf. We use that same process in the Presidents Cup and we do really well. 

‘Unfortunately we have strayed from a winning formula for the last three Ryder Cups and we need to consider maybe getting back to that formula that helped us play our best.’ Asked if he believed his comments were disloyal to Watson, he replied: ‘I’m sorry you’re taking it that way. I’m just talking about what Paul Azinger did to help us play our best.’

Azinger has said that Watson never asked him about his “pod” system in which the U.S. team was broken into three groups of four players and stuck together the entire week.

No team embodies togetherness quite like Europe. The Americans now have to wait two more years — Hazeltine outside Minneapolis is the next Ryder Cup — to figure that out. 

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