Ryder Cup is a battle between Europe’s veterans and Team USA’s youth

Team USA has the better, younger players at the Ryder Cup this week, but Team Europe has the teamwork and experience to pull off the upset yet again

Team USA arrived at the Ryder Cup in Wisconsin this week attempting to present themselves as a unified unit, as more than a collection of supremely talented golfers but as an actual team with one common goal. They played ping-pong. They jumped on each other’s backs. They smiled and hugged. Even Bryson DeChambeau seemed ready to put aside his feud with teammate Brooks Koepka, at least for one week.

The American team is, on paper, the most talented ever assembled in the history of the tournament. For the first time, the team consists of eight of the top-10 players on the world rankings. They’ve combined to win 13 major championships and have the reigning Olympic gold medalist and the FedEx Cup champion.

But, as the Europeans have shown time and again for the past two decades, the Ryder Cup isn’t contested on paper. The 43rd Ryder Cup should be a blowout: Team USA has an average world rank of ninth, the Europeans 31st. The lowest-ranked American (Scottie Scheffler, 21st) is still above eight members of Team Europe. The Americans ranked on average 18th in Strokes Gained: Tee to Green last season, including eight in the top-20; the Europeans were 34th. Americans combined for 16 PGA Tour victories last season, Europe only three.

The Americans have the talent to overwhelm the Europeans at Whistling Straits. If Team Europe has one thing going in their favor, though, it’s experience. Take away Dustin Johnson’s 16 career matches, and Lee Westwood and Sergio Garcia alone have both played more matches than the rest of the American team combined. Westwood played his first Ryder Cup the same year Team USA’s leading point-getter, Collin Morikawa, was born.

The veterans on Team Europe, including Westwood, Garcia, Ian Poulter, even the hero of Paris Tommy Fleetwood, have experienced their share of Ryder Cup triumph. They’ve won seven of the last nine tournaments dating back to 2002. Never mind Team USA’s apparent superiority; the Europeans know that to be successful at this stage, it’s not every man for himself but 12 players sharing one common goal, one common purpose.

“We play for each other. I think that’s the best thing that you can do,” Rory McIlroy, a veteran of the last six Ryder Cups, said this week. “You play for the guys that are beside you. You play for everyone that’s helping our team try to win this week. You’re obviously playing for your country and your continent and I guess your tour in some way, as well. But most of all, we play for each other.”

Team USA experiencing a youth movement at this Ryder Cup

Captain Steve Stricker’s Team USA, for all their talent, is taking six rookies to Whistling Straits. The team has an average age of 29, six years younger than the Europeans. Only Johnson is older than 32; eight are under 30. Half the team has never experienced an atmosphere like they will this week, the most raucous, passionate crowd in golf.

Jordan Spieth, at 28 considered a veteran on this team and appearing in his fourth Ryder Cup, has some simple advice for the likes of Scheffler and Morikawa: treat this week as an opportunity that doesn’t come around very often.

“What I would say is, one it’s more of the adrenaline rush than the nerves. Like it’s more of an exciting version of that than it is a nervy version of that, and embrace that because you don’t really get that opportunity but once every couple years,” he said.

“And then, two, given that, you get to learn a lot from this event. You learn what you do well, but then like this tournament has propelled me into really good seasons the next seasons after I’ve played…Maybe it takes two or three years if you’re playing really well to have four or five times you’re in contention in a major, but you get to do it three, four, five times this week. So embrace that.”

Being a rookie at the Ryder Cup doesn’t mean you’ll struggle. In the last three tournaments, rookies are 38-28-7. Fleetwood was a rookie in 2018 when, with Francesco Molinari, the team of “Moli-Wood” became Ryder Cup legends. The youngsters on Team USA are also unsullied by all their past failures: Paris, Gleneagles, and Medinah are nothing but names on a map for Scheffler, Morikawa, Harris English, Tony Finau, and Daniel Berger.

But for Spieth, good buddy Justin Thomas, Johnson, and Captain Stricker. they are still fresh in their minds. They have their work cut out for them if they want to return the Ryder Cup trophy to American soil. Two of their star players openly dislike each other. DeChambeau seems more interested in the long drive competition he’s taking part in after the tournament. Koepka has said he finds the team element strange: why should he be punished for someone else’s bad shot?

Team USA has the players and the talent. But Europe has the momentum, experience, and passion. Whether the youth of the Americans, or the veteran savvy of the Europeans, prevails this week will determine who’s lifting the trophy up high on Sunday.