The USA Ryder Cup will leave Edinburgh Airport at 10am tomorrow morning sentenced to another two years in the Ryder Cup doldrums.
Europe captured its sixth Ryder Cup in the past seven showdowns winning 16 1/2 to 11 1/2 points on the PGA Centenary course at Gleneagles.
But while the European Team will celebrate into the early hours of the morning, Tom Watson’s men were left wanting.
And already the ‘blame game’ has began and questions again being raised how the Stars and Stripes team can turn around their flagging Ryder Cup fortunes.
In fact, Europe has now won eight of the past 10 Ryder Cups going back to 1995.
Watson said at the closing ceremony Europe ‘was full of the studs’.
However Watson had been interviewed moments after witnessing Welshman Jamie Donaldson pull off the ‘Shot of the Year’ at the par four 15th to give Europe the point it needed to go to an unassailable 14 1/2 points.
“Early in the match, the trending was exactly where we wanted it to go. We had a lot of red scores up there and the U.S. players responded early.
They just couldn’t keep it going. That was our problem,” said Watson.
“But have to give credit to The European Team. They played better than we did. They have a wonderful team. They are stacked with great players,
and it would have been a tough go to beat them this week. But we came in here thinking we could beat them, and just didn’t work out.
“The performance of the rookies was great. They scored eight and a half points for our team, and that bodes well for the future of the American Ryder Cup Team.
“The highlight is being able to get to know the players and trying to convince them that they are champions and they can win this event. I have great vice captains with me and great support alongside of me, and that’s what — I’ll take out of this just that; that it was a collective team effort to try to get the players to play their best golf and let them go up on the stage and perform.
“It’s just that the other team performed better than we did, that’s the bottom line.
“This is a great venue for golf. Scotland is the Home of Golf, and I think it got us due rewards for this event here.”
