No Tiger? No Problem as U.S. Thrash Europeans in Ryder Cup

by Paul Conneally | September 21, 2008 at 10:05 pm

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Despite having no Tiger in the team the U.S. Ryder Cup golf team thrashed the European favourites and took the cup for the first time since 1999. Nick Faldo the European captain is ubder heavy fire back in the U.K. in particular for his poor handling of the press and offbeat match player selections. U.S. captain Paul Azinger is ecstatic with this being the result of two years hard work in preparation for this showdown with the Europeans who before arriving perhaps believed their own hype that they were unbeatable.

Tiger Woods sat at home in Florida watching and text-messaging Michael Jordan in the gallery at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Ky.

So how in the name of Samuel Ryder did the United States beat Europe to win the Ryder Cup for the first time this century?

Well, the Americans displayed the spectacular shotmaking and incredible putting touch that the Europeans had shown in winning five of the previous six biennial competitions.

Youthful, exhuberant Anthony Kim, one of six rookies on the U.S. team, kick-started the final American surge with a stunning rout of Sergio Garcia, then veteran Jim Furyk clinched the first victory since 1999 with a grinding victory over Miguel Angel Jimenez in the eighth of 12 singles matches.

The teams split the final four matches, giving the U.S. a 7 1/2-4 1/2 edge in singles and a 16 1/2-11 1/2 victory, their largest since 1981. This after the U.S. suffered back-to-back 18 1/2-9 1/2 losses, their worst in 37 Ryder Cups.

"I poured my heart and soul into this for two years, and the players poured their heart and soul into it for one week," said U.S. captain Paul Azinger, who got the PGA of America to change the selection process. "I couldn't be happier."

And in this article Nick Faldo's pain is explored:

For Nick Faldo the truth stretched out long and with almost exquisite pain in the heat and the tension of the bluegrass afternoon.

Against the odds that many will always insist he built up against himself with reckless arrogance and so much of a career-long insistence that he would always know best, he submitted, stroke by stroke, to the American belief that it was time they got their hands on the Ryder Cup once again.

In the final devastating act, when Faldo's judgement – and his last rating as a combatant at the top of the game – faced its ultimate test, there was maybe just one comfort for the best, most calculating golfer ever bred in Europe.

It was that he had a surrogate, an alter ego if you like, who had won a little glory even as Faldo, the beaten captain. was being led into the dock.

His name is, of course, Ian Poulter and his achievement has been to insist that such as Lee Westwood, Sergio Garcia and the absent Colin Montgomerie and Darren Clarke give up a little room in the pantheon of Ryder Cup heroes.