The final score was a route, but the American team had plenty of chances to make it a closer match, and put some pressure on the Euros.
Johnny Miller offered a quite stunning statistic during Sunday's play (when things were still far from settled): of the last 31 singles matches that had gone up the 18th, the U.S. had taken a full point in only 3. There had been a lot of talk about how the Euros just seem to be able to finish matches, and this is about as glaring example of this phenomenon as I can imagine.
This year, 5 matches went up the 18th, and the U.S. took a full point in only 1 of them, when Stenson missed a 4-footer for the half*. FTR, Europe took only 1 win too (Garcia 1-up over Furyk) and the other three were halved. However, the halves were matches that the U.S. really need to, and in many cases, should have, won. Rose won 18 to halve Mahan (who had been 4-up at one point) and Poulter likewise won 18 for the half with Simpson. The other half came when Johnson beat Dubuisson on 18 long after the cup was gone.
A stronger finish by Furyk, Mahan and Simpson, and the score becomes 15-13. If Speith doesn't have a rookie-meltdown, it's 14-14 and then you only need to have turned one other loss into a half, and it's U.S.A's cup. A lot of would-shoulda-coulda there, but if Team USA doesn't get better at closing out matches**, then Europe's domination of the tournament is going to continue.
* Which gave Reed the full point, which was hardly backing up his less-than endearing "Shh" to the crowd earlier in the round.
** I once read an article by Nick Faldo in which he wrote about his philosophy for Ryder Cup match play: you try to put your tee shot in the fairway, and then you try to hole every other shot after that. You put your boot on your opponent's throat, and you don't let up until he's dead. Even with a big lead, you keep squeezing the life out of him because, until he's dead, he can always come back at you. That's a brutal philosophy from a seemingly gentle man, but it seems to be the one that is ingrained in Team Euro, and not in Team USA.
