For the Europeans, fun is a serious team ingredient

One by one the Euros began introducing each other into their open microphones, pretending to conduct their own interviews. ‘‘Now on the main stage, we have the Irish Monkey, Padraig Harrington,’’ Levet said. ‘‘On the extreme radical left, we have the Mean Machine (Colin Montgomerie). On the far right, we have The Midget (Paul McGinley). Seated next to him is the fellow who lifts so many weights we just call him, ‘Ahhhhnold’ (Paul Casey).’’

‘‘And, finally, here’s the bad man himself, Mr Trousers, Ian Poulter,’’ Levet said.

And you wonder why the Europeans have smoked the United States in seven of the last 10 Ryder Cups. The Americans don’t have nicknames for each other. They’re so tight they sometimes even refer to themselves in the third person.

‘‘On our tour, we all travel together and spend a lot more time with each other, probably, than the Americans do. We tend to play for each other. And that’s huge,’’ said Montgomerie, the consummate European Ryder Cupper who gains magical skills once every two years. ‘‘And this week, what a team we were.’’

The heroes of this European team, historic conquerors Sunday of a bludgeoned US team of Tigers, Phils and IIIs, come from England, Ireland, Scotland, Spain and France, though their coach is German. They love cigars, peroxide in their spiked hair, and beer; but champagne, preferably sprayed rather than swallowed, is their favorite intoxicant.

They’re drunk now, the lot of them. That’s a promise. Either from glee or wine, probably both. As you read this, they’re flying at 40,000 feet, probably aided by an airplane, though not necessarily.

‘‘No one will sleep tonight,’’ Northern Ireland’s Darren Clarke said after his team had given America its worst beating — by far — in the Cup’s 77 years, 18-1/2 to 9-1/2.

On Friday, American captain Hal Sutton said that he would have ‘‘bet the ranch’’ that his pairing of Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, ranked No 2 and No 4 in the world, could not have been beaten twice in the same day. After this defeat, he was asked what he would have bet if he’d been given his team nine points. ‘‘Whatever was left to bet,’’ Sutton said.

Woods got the joke and pounded his fist laughing. The rest of the American team looked like it was making plane reservations to 11 different cities, all in first class. Except for the ones with private jets.

The team that was far more fun, more personal, more passionate and more deserving of victory in a team setting got its vindicating victory.

Even the Euros’ followers, scattered across the knolls of Oakland Hills in knots of glee and noise, reflect the temper of their team. They wear the hats of fools and jesters. Or wrap themselves in various national flags. Golf is a party, don’t you know?

These Euro players see in each other a collective athletic strength that none of them has ever been able to summon as an individual. Though their fame and wealth are certainly uncommon, they are far from singular.

Not one of them has ever won the British Open, Masters, US Open or PGA Championship. And they may never. So, every two years, the Euros come to the Ryder Cup with pent-up glee, a spattering of anti-American resentment and a mutual support system common to underdogs everywhere.

They are golf’s second-class citizens and ferociously proud of it. For 20 years, this scenario, or some slight variant, has played itself out on golf’s most emotional stage where players weep and dare to care.

This time, however, the result was so entirely different that it was almost beyond comprehension, much less prediction. This drubbing of the aristocracy by its trans-Atlantic bourgeoisie was class warfare at its edgiest and finest. In fact, it was the culmination of an almost quarter-century trend.

In 1981, America beat Europe so badly on its home turf in Surrey, England — 18-1/2 to 9-1/2 — that the very fate of the event was endangered.

How could a competition so lopsided be continued? Now the circle, right down to an identical score, is complete. The American team watches all this with undisguised and mystified envy. Why can’t we have a blast like that? ‘‘We’ve looked at each other harder each night,’’ Davis Love III said. ‘‘Why does this keep happening to us? We want to win so bad that we don’t play well.’’

‘‘Everybody always calls them the ‘underdog’ and they love that,’’ Mickelson said. ‘‘Well, I don’t think we will be the favorite next time. Hopefully (with the roles reversed) we’ll play like they did. We need to play with more of a free spirit.’’

First, you have to have one.

(LA Times – Washington Post)