You could almost hear the cheers from across the Atlantic when Shane Lowry found the middle of the cup on the 18th. In sealing the Ryder Cup for Europe, cameras panned to Americans heading towards the exit gates, silent and thoroughly beaten. The outpour of emotion was so richly deserved, especially given what Lowry and his partner Rory McIlroy had been forced to endure throughout the weekend. Yet perhaps the heckling and abuse is what makes this victory feel even sweeter. McIlroy said it himself that there is nothing harder in this sport than winning an away Ryder Cup, and he was proven right; not only through how influential the crowd were but also how very close America were to staging yet another miraculous comeback.
The truth is, despite the third day being a scare, it was always going to be a victory for Europe. They had played the better golf across the three days, and America could not compete with the strength of the European team play. It’s no surprise that the sessions unfolded how they did, because ultimately the USA had stronger individual players, but they failed to understand the importance of team coherence, and as such the final day only served to save these selfish players from complete humiliation.
On the other side, you could tell that the Europeans had a much stronger bond. This is best symbolised by the fact that McIlroy, Europe’s best player, probably didn’t have his best performance over the weekend and yet still won 3.5 points out of a possible 5. This is because his teammates were able to back him up and were able to share the responsibility equally. They celebrated every successful putt as if it were their own, they got each other out of difficult situations, and perhaps most importantly, they were united by how hated they were by the crowd as they continued to win hole after hole around Bethpage Black.
Of course, they were helped out enormously by one of the most disappointing captain’s performances in Ryder Cup history from Keegan Bradley. His judgment must be brought into question for the whole weekend, but in particular, his decision to choose the statistically worst pairing he could have picked in Colin Morikawa and Harris English for the opening round was quite extraordinary. Furthermore, pairing his two strongest golfers, Scottie Scheffler and Bryson DeChambeau, showed a complete misunderstanding of how one succeeds in this format. Despite his team saving him some dignity, it is hard to see how Bradley will recover from this, given how wrong he got it on Friday and Saturday.
Let us move away from the negatives and instead focus on just how incredible the European performance was. Led by their inspiring captain, Luke Donald, the European team played with a sense of freedom and confidence that the Americans couldn’t match. Tommy Fleetwood played a beautiful short game and was quite rightfully named the player of the tournament. Justin Rose was a master on the greens, giving us some of the moments of the weekend when he walked in a 20-foot putt on the par-3 eighth, as well as an outrageous up and down on the thirteenth. Finally, the temperament shown by Ludvig Åberg to keep his head whilst all around him were losing theirs, and mark the only blue score during the singles, was a crucial factor in getting Europe over the line.
The 45th Ryder Cup will live long in the memory as a tournament that was dominated from start to finish by team Europe. They completed the task that they set out to do since they won in Rome two years ago, and they did it with a day to spare. For the Americans, at least they had something to cheer about on the final day, but that doesn’t really stand as an argument, given that they didn’t have anything to lose, and they couldn’t have played much worse. It shows how in sport, the strength of a team completely outweighs the strength of the individual, and that is how Donald, McIlroy, Lowry and the rest of this brilliant European team made history and won an away Ryder Cup.
“Tommy Fleetwood Shane Lowry Ryder Cup 2025-084” by Bryan Berlin is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.