Ryder Cup: Can the United States vs. Europe Still Be Considered a Rivalry?

Sports rivalries can be forged for any number of reasons.

Rivalries can be created abruptly out of a particular event, such as a bench-clearing brawl or some other form of bad blood between players and coaches from opposing sides.  

Rivalries are often formed based on geographical proximity, such as the Yankees and Mets, the St Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs or the Green Bay Packers and Detroit Lions.

And of course, rivalries can be fashioned through years of intense battles between two highly talented teams or individuals.

Whatever the reason behind the initial creation, strong competition is paramount to the long-term survival of any given rivalry.

And that brings us to the Ryder Cup.

The United States vs. Europe is meant to be one of the most intense rivalries in all of sports.

Some even refer to the Ryder Cup as the biggest golf event in the world, transcending even the four major championships.

However, the United States and Europe are not in close geographical proximity to one another.

Most of the competitors from both sides are neighbors down in Florida and play together often throughout the year on the PGA Tour, so there has not been a great deal of bad blood to speak of between the two teams since the War by the Shore back in 1991.

And when it comes to the actual competition, the Ryder Cup has been completely one-sided for more than 20 years now, and particularly over the past decade.

Europe has won eight of the last 10 Ryder Cup matches, including six of the past seven. And it has been 21 years since the United States has managed to win on European soil.

Between 1995 and 2014, the Europeans have defeated the Americans in the Ryder Cup by a cumulative score of 152–128.

And last Sunday’s 16 ½ - 11 ½ victory by the European side was yet another rout by a far superior Ryder Cup team.

So the question now starts to become how the United States vs. Europe can even be considered a rivalry anymore?

The moment that the two teams arrived at Gleneagles last week, there was an aura of inevitability about the outcome of the 2014 Ryder Cup matches. One got the feeling that no matter what the American side did or said in the days leading up to the matches, the Europeans would be the ones drinking champagne out of the cup on Sunday evening, which of course wound up to be the case.

Where competition ceases to exist, interest levels decline and rivalries tend to die.

Jack Nicklaus was well aware of this back in 1977 when he approached the Earl of Derby, who at the time ran the PGA of Europe, and suggested that the Great Britain and Ireland team be expanded to include players from throughout Europe if the matches were to have any chance at surviving.

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At the time of Nicklaus’ suggestion, the United States had won 19 out of 22 matches, including the last 10 consecutive matches, and players and fans alike had lost all interest in these biannual beatdowns.  

The Earl of Derby, evidently sensing that the Ryder Cup was teetering on the brink of extinction, expanded the Great Britain and Ireland team to include players from throughout Europe the very next year, and the matches have since evolved into must-see television for golf fans across the globe.    

But, while Nicklaus’ intentions were admirable at the time and very likely saved the Ryder Cup, the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction since the mid-1990s.

The United States has won just two out of 10 matches since 1995, and Europe’s complete and utter domination of the Ryder Cup is showing no sign of waning anytime soon.

Europe outscored the United States by an incredible 38 strokes last week, while Ryder Cup veteran Phil Mickelson waged a one-man mutiny on captain Tom Watson during the U.S. team’s Sunday afternoon press conference.

Another few wins by the Europeans, and this “rivalry”—if you can even call it that at this point—will completely cease to exist.

Something needs to change, and it needs to happen quickly.

The European side has made numerous qualification and selection modifications through the years in order to remain competitive.

Between 1927—when the Ryder Cup matches officially began—and 1971, the United States was competing against a team comprised of only professional golfers from Great Britain.

And in addition to the requirement that all players had to have been born in Great Britain, all members of the Great Britain Ryder Cup team also had to reside in Great Britain in order to be eligible for the team.

After winning just three of 19 matches between 1927 and 1971, the Great Britain team was expanded to include players from Ireland.

This initial expansion had absolutely no impact on the outcome of the matches between 1973 and 1977, as the United States won all three Ryder matches during that time period by a combined score of 52.5 to 31.5.

Nicklaus then convinced the Earl of Derby to open up the Great Britain and Ireland side to all of Europe in 1977, and the matches finally became competitive between 1979 and 1993.

However, despite victories in 1999 and 2008 Ryder Cup matches, the Europeans have more or less dominated this biannual competition for the past 20.

Twenty years of complete dominance is far more than an anomaly; it is a trend.

While the European side has made several changes to its qualification criteria throughout the first 50 years of the Ryder Cup matches in order to remain competitive and allow this biannual competition to survive, the American side has not touched the single largest requirement that allows a player to represent the United States in the Ryder Cup—that being that any potential U.S. Ryder Cup team member must be been born in the United States.

If there was ever a time for the United States to make some changes to its qualification criteria, now is that time.  

The United States is no longer competitive at the Ryder Cup, and it is only a matter of time before the general public begins losing interest in these biannual matches yet again.

Just as Nicklaus had suggested that the PGA of Europe expand its Ryder Cup team to include all of Europe, perhaps the United States should consider expanding its Ryder Cup team to include players from the rest of the world outside of Europe?

After all, one of Nicklaus’ main arguments for the expansion of the GB&I team to include all of Europe back in 1977 was that the European Tour was no longer a tour consisting of players from just Great Britain and Ireland. Well, the PGA Tour is no longer a tour consisting of just American-born golfers in 2014.

Not only do virtually all of the European Ryder Cup team members compete primarily on the PGA Tour, but the PGA Tour also contains full-time members from Australia, Asia, South America, South Africa, Canada and many other nations throughout the world.

If the PGA of America were to open up the current United States Ryder Cup team to international golfers that live and play in America, perhaps these biannual Ryder Cup matches could once again become competitive.

Of course, the PGA of America could build in its own set of criteria, such as each foreign-born player must make his full-time home in America or play at least 20 events on U.S. soil each year in order to be eligible to compete in the Ryder Cup.  

To some this may sound like a hasty, over-the-top response to last week’s brutal Ryder Cup defeat.

But we are not talking about just one Ryder Cup defeat here. We are talking about 20 years of domination by the European Team.

Expanding the Great Britain Ryder Cup team to include players from Ireland would have seemed like a desperate move in 1971.

And expanding the GB&I team to include all of Europe in 1977 would have appeared to most as a final drastic attempt to save a dying golf competition.

But, these changes were necessary to secure the future of the Ryder Cup.

Although as Americans it has never been in our nature to openly admit defeat, it is unlikely that we are going to have much success at the Ryder Cup unless we can call in some help from other nations, just as the European team has done multiple times throughout the history of the Ryder Cup matches.