Europe were totally dominant at the Ryder Cup last month, with a final day surge from the United States still not enough to turn the tide.
Team Europe, captained by Luke Donald, were far superior in every way to Keegan Bradley‘s side during the first two days of the Ryder Cup three weeks ago at Bethpage Black.
US captain Bradley made numerous bizarre decisions at the Ryder Cup and they proved costly in the end.
The 39-year-old from Vermont failed to grasp that the USA’s defeat came about by him being outthought by Donald, rather than his team simply being outplayed.
Bradley called for the envelope rule to be changed urgently, but if the truth be known, that should have been the least of his concerns.
Now one of Bradley’s vice-captains has made a statement suggesting that the levels of delusion inside the US camp are high.
US Ryder Cup vice-captain makes hugely concerning admission
Brandt Snedeker was one of the five US vice-captains at Bethpage three weeks ago.
So he had a first-hand view of Europe’s dominance during the first two days of play.
When speaking on The Fore Play Podcast, he explained why he believes the US lost the Ryder Cup in the end.
“Scottie had a rough couple of first days, but when you look at the numbers and you look at how well he really played, just because who he played happened to make a couple of extra putts than he did, he played fantastic on Saturday afternoon and Saturday morning.
“That’s part of it, too. You get these team competitions, and sometimes you gotta just tip your cap and say they made 400 feet of putts on the first day on us, there’s not much we can do. Ours didn’t go in; theirs did.
“You can have all the great plans in the world, all the great setup, everything you wanna have happen. But if the other team makes more putts than you, there really isn’t a whole lot you can do.”
The fact that the American camp seem to think Europe won the Ryder Cup simply because their players putted better than the US team did is utterly farcical.
And it goes a long way to explaining why the United States have been so inferior to Europe in the competition over the past three decades.
Keegan Bradley’s shocking errors to blame for USA’s Ryder Cup defeat
Bradley has to take some serious responsibility here.
Why did he pair up Collin Morikawa with Harris English in the Friday morning foursomes?
And even worse than that, why did he stick with them on the Saturday? The American duo were ranked dead last in 132nd position in Data Golf’s optimal pairings’ standings.
Deciding to play them together on day one despite all of the data pointing against it was stubborn at best from Bradley.
However, rolling them out again the following day was downright unforgivable – a decision that could well have cost America the Ryder Cup.
So the fact that Snedeker thinks the Ryder Cup was lost due to the Europeans performing better on the greens once again proves that there are real levels of delusion and stubbornness that are holding the United States back.
If they want to turn the tide and start winning the Ryder Cup regularly again, more honest conversations will be needed.
Receive exclusive golf news and updates twice a week to your mailbox
