One of the biggest surprises about last week at the Ryder Cup was the performance of Scottie Scheffler, with the world number one managing to win just one point from his five matches at Bethpage Black.
Scottie Scheffler has had an interesting relationship with the Ryder Cup so far in his career. He was unbeaten on his debut at Whistling Straits. However, he failed to win any of his four matches in Rome.
Scheffler’s wait for a third Ryder Cup victory continued into Sunday in New York. The 29-year-old managed to beat an exhausted Rory McIlroy in the singles to make his first contribution to the scoreboard all week.
But Scheffler is not alone in struggling to deliver as the world number one on the Ryder Cup stage. In fact, you would not even need to go back a decade for the last time the best player on the planet lost four of their five matches at the event.
The last world number one to lose four of his five matches at the Ryder Cup
The 2018 Ryder Cup also proved to be a largely miserable experience for Team USA. Nearly a third of their points came in the opening session at Le Golf National, with Jim Furyk‘s men leading 3-1 after Friday morning.
One of those points came from Dustin Johnson and Rickie Fowler, as they beat Rory McIlroy and Thorbjorn Olesen 4&2. It would be Olesen’s final appearance of the week before the Sunday singles.
It would also be the final point Johnson would put on the board for the visitors.
Johnson and Fowler would lose to Justin Rose and Henrik Stenson in the foursomes that afternoon, before being beaten by Paul Casey and Tyrrell Hatton on Saturday morning.
And Rose and Stenson got the better of Johnson again in the fourth session, with Brooks Koepka his partner on that occasion.
His disappointing week would conclude with a loss to Ian Poulter in the singles.
The form which took Dustin Johnson to world number one for a third time in 2018
Johnson had won three times on the PGA Tour leading into the Ryder Cup in 2018, including at the RBC Canadian Open in July. He finished inside the top 10 at The Masters and followed that with a third place finish at the US Open at Shinnecock.
He ended up in second place behind Brooks Koepka in qualification for Paris, with Koepka winning two majors.
Johnson only spent four weeks at the summit of the world rankings. But he went on to return to top spot on four more occasions.
And of course, Johnson would prove to be the star of the Ryder Cup three years later at Whistling Straits when he won all five of his matches in a record victory for the US against Europe.
The Europeans will be hoping that Scheffler does not do similar at Adare Manor following his week to forget this year.
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