Ryder Cup- Wrap up

8 1/2 to 3 1/2 on the final day.

That ties the record for the worst final day defeat in the Ryder Cup since the current format was adopted in 1981.

That level of collapse is unbelievable. It has been written here before this writers thoughts on "pressure" in athletics. Sitting here this morning, writing or reading, it occurs to me that if I messed up that bad at my job, and make no mistake about it, golf is a job, nothing less for these guys, I would go to jail.

Some people have tried to pin the loss on the poor play of Jim Furyk or Steve Stricker, the captain's picks. Yes, Steve Stricker went 0-4 in this Ryder Cup. Furyk was 1-2 in the Cup. But the fact is, the team had a four point lead going into Sunday. They only needed win four of the twelve matches and tie one to win the Ryder Cup. So that allows for seven match losses. Even with Stricker and Furyk losing on the final day, that still leaves five losses to spare. No, this is not the fault of those two golfers.

This burden lies with the whole team. Every golfer on the American side went out on Sunday and played sub-standard golf. A quick look down the list will show that nearly every player on the American side shot rounds of one or two under par. That simply will not cut it in match play. Brandt Snedeker has taken some heat for his loss to Paul Lawrie, which makes sense on the surface until you notice that Lawrie was six under par in 15 holes.

No, this was an entire team failure for the Americans. From top to bottom, the team played terrible.

But what does this mean for the US side going forward? One obvious thought is that veteran players are not exceptionally valueable for the US team. Looking back at the 2008 Ryder Cup team, the team was populated with six Ryder Cup rookies. That statistic should be noted by all given the generally terrible play of veteran golfers; even in 2008, Phil Mickelson went 1-2-2 in the competition. No, the truth is, these veteran golfers have such mental demons due to having been beaten so many times.

Whatever happens, this team will have plenty of time to think about their terrible play on the final day. No way around it, the US team truly pulled defeat from the tight jaws of victory and has let Europe retain the Cup for another two years when it had no business doing so. Obviously the Europeans got no sleep last night, nor should they have. Hopefully the Americans got no sleep either, for the opposite reasons.