Straffan, Ireland – There may come a day when America’s putts tumble into the hole like water gently falling over a cliff. When its Ryder Cup team gathers steam like a locomotive barreling through the early-morning fog.
At this point, however, the Yanks are stalled like desperate travelers waitin’ for the Robert E. Lee. As a result, if that glorious day is going to occur in this, the 36th edition of the biennial matches versus Europe, it will have to be during today’s concluding 12 singles matches.
“I know that our team has a chance,” U.S. captain Tom Lehman said. “I know we have the ability to get the job done.”
The problem has been fulfilling that promise. For a second agonizing day at the K Club, the visiting Americans made just enough mistakes to blunt any possible surges, while the European team, almost willing the breaks to go its way, has positioned itself to make history by winning the event a third consecutive time.
Europe needs only four points from today’s 12 matches to retain the Cup. For the U.S. to wrest it away, it will have to match its performance in 1999 at The Country Club in Brookline, Mass. Having lost each of the four team sessions 2 1/2-1 1/2, the visitors trail 10-6, the same deficit they faced seven years ago.
“The whole team went into Sunday knowing we had to get it done. There wasn’t any other option,” said Lehman, who won the first point of the day for the U.S. in 1999.
As captain, Lehman was faced with the task of deciding the order of players he would send out in an attempt to once again catch lightning in a bottle. He elected to put his four rookies – J.J. Henry, Zach Johnson, Vaughn Taylor and Brett Wetterich – in the middle of the lineup, surrounding them with veteran talent. David Toms will lead off for the Americans, facing Colin Montgomerie. The last match will pair Scott Verplank and local hero Padraig Harrington.
“I see this as a way for us to carry the momentum throughout the lineup,” Lehman said.
While the matches the past two days have undoubtedly been more closely contested than those in Europe’s 18 1/2-9 1/2 rout two years ago at Oakland Hills, they’ve followed a similarly depressing script for the Americans. The hosts have taken an early lead, fallen back and then regained the upper hand with some late-match heroics.
At one point Saturday, as he watched the scenario play out again in the afternoon foursome matches, European Darren Clarke held a thick cluster of cigars in his hand, almost in anticipation of his team’s gathering celebration. Here in Ireland, the land of leprechauns, the scene had a Red Auerbach-Boston Celtics feel to it. But Clarke and his mates insisted that they wouldn’t light up until the job was properly completed.
“I’m already talking with my players,” European captain Ian Woosnam said. “We’ve got to take every day individually.”
Surely his team will find the little gold trophy at the end of the rainbow should its lot continue for one more day. Sergio Garcia, who ranks in a tie for 157th out of 198 players listed on the PGA Tour’s putting statistics, has barely missed a hole this week. His victories with Jose Maria Olazabal and Luke Donald on Saturday extended his personal streak to nine straight wins in Cup competition. In ending his foursomes match Saturday, Paul Casey made a hole-in-one.
Meanwhile, the Americans, while continuing to battle, end up glumly looking like all they can find are two- and three-leaf clovers. It has been so bad that British commentators are searching for deep-seated reasons why the Americans have faltered: they’ve grown lazy because of the easy money found on the PGA Tour, or maybe it’s an inability to play in the gloomy conditions that have dominated the week here.
There was even the suggestion that the Americans can’t shake the sense of being second-class players in comparison to Tiger Woods.
According to Chris DiMarco, who gained but half a point in three matches with Phil Mickelson over the first two days, the answer is a great deal simpler.
“It’s about making putts, and it’s about momentum,” he said. “That’s what match play is, momentum, and we haven’t had a chance to get that this week. We haven’t had a day where you’ve seen three (American) numbers on the board and maybe only one (European). Every day, we get through three or four holes and it’s European numbers up there. It’s demoralizing for us.”
DiMarco estimated that between he and Mickelson, who were undefeated together in last year’s Presidents Cup, they made just a combined five birdies in their two fourball matches.
“That’s unacceptable,” DiMarco said.
But it was a common occurrence for the U.S. During Saturday’s fourball play, Johnson made seven birdies in getting his team’s only full point. The Americans totaled just seven (with one eagle from Henry) in 50 holes in the other three matches.
Staff writer Anthony Cotton can be reached at 303-954-1292 or acotton@denverpost.com.
