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2014 Ryder Cup: Don't Count Team USA out Just Yet

 

The United States has managed to win just one of the last six Ryder Cup tournaments.

Going back to 1985, the U.S. team has beaten the Europeans in just four of 14 Ryder Cup clashes, which is an abysmal 28.57 percent winning percentage for Team USA.

You have to go back to 1993 to find the last time that the U.S. Ryder Cup team was able to win on European soil.

So, needless to say, the past two generations of American golfers have been absolutely trounced by their European counterparts at the Ryder Cup.

And very few people are predicting a turning of the tide this year at Gleneagles in Scotland.

Between the European side coming off of their epic final-day comeback at the 2012 matches (now known as the Miracle at Medinah), the U.S. bringing over a team comprised of a mixture of rookies and cold, out-of-form veterans, and the fact that it has been 21 years since an American team captured the Ryder Cup on European soil, very few experts are giving Team USA any chance at all of bringing the cup back from Scotland next week.

A lot of attention has been given to the sorry state of the American Ryder Cup team as the matches are quickly approaching.

Phil Mickelson did not have a single top 10 on the PGA Tour until his second-place finish at the PGA Championship.

Lefty's only other top 10 anywhere in the world came back in January at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship, and he withdrew from the BMW Championship after 36 holes two weeks ago citing fatigue.

Since proclaiming himself as one of the top five players in the world after his win at the WGC-Cadillac Championship back in early March, Patrick Reed managed to post just two top-10 finishes in his last 18 events, which also included six missed cuts.

Reed was in contention after two rounds at the Deutsche Bank Championship a few weeks ago before posting a shocking 82 during round three and missing the 54-hole cut. Reed then went on to post a T53 and T19 in the final two FedEx Cup playoff events.

Needless to say, it is quite difficult to become a top-five player in the world while rarely cracking the top 10 at PGA Tour events.

Zach Johnson has had just one top-10 finish since the Humana Challenge back in January and has not finished better than 21st in his past seven events.

Bubba Watson has posted just two top 10s since his Masters victory back in April. If Watson is playing well next week, he could be an entertaining, uplifting member of the U.S. squad.

However, if things are not going Watson's way, he is liable to turn into the most ornery rabbit-eared golfer to take part in a Ryder Cup match since Colin Montgomerie.

Note to fans: If Watson is playing poorly, make sure not to breathe too loudly if you have any intention of avoiding a verbal assault by the two-time Masters champion.

With Rory McIlroy really breaking out during the later stages of the 2014 season, the whole Jordan Spieth story has become so last year.

Spieth has just two top 10s in his last 13 events and finished off the year with a T27 at the Tour Championship where he was unable to break 70 and carded an 80 during the third round.

When U.S. Ryder Cup captain Tom Watson showed up in New York on September 2 to announce his three captain's picks at the same studio where "Saturday Night Live" is filmed, the question was not how Watson could improve his team with his three picks, it was how in the world he was going to manage adding three additional players from a pool of terrible options without further damaging an already poor Ryder Cup team.  

Watson clearly felt as if experience was less of a risk than adding additional Ryder Cup rookies so he went with Hunter Mahan, Webb Simpson and Keegan Bradley for his three captain's picks.

Mahan has played in three Ryder Cups and four Presidents Cups, and had just won the Barclays a week before Watson was to make his selections.

However, aside from the Barclays, Mahan has had one of the worst years of his career.

Prior to his win at Ridgewood Country Club, Mahan had recorded just one top-10 finish since February and had missed the cut in three of his previous seven events.

Since being selected to the Ryder Cup team, Mahan has posted a 64th-place finish at the Deutsche Bank Championship, a T59 at the BMW Championship and T23 at the Tour Championship.

Mahan's game was out of form heading into the Barclays; he caught lightning in a bottle for four days at Ridgewood and then lost his game once again.

Keegan Bradley's 2014 season as a whole was average at best; he has recorded a missed cut, T16, T53 and a withdrawal in his last four events. Bradley hasn't won anywhere in the world since the 2012 WGC-Bridgestone Invitational and had just five top 10s in 24 events during the 2014 season.

Bradley has some strong Ryder Cup experience and pairs well with Mickelson, which is likely what influenced Watson's decision to select Bradley. But Bradley is certainly not on a hot streak heading into the 2014 Ryder Cup matches.

Watson's third captain's selection, Webb Simpson, has two top 10s in his last six events. However, Simpson's other four finishes during that six-event stretch have included two missed cuts, a T53 and a T23.

Simpson has by no stretch of the imagination had a great 2014 season, and he wasn't even on what one would describe as a hot streak when Watson made his selection on September 2.

But let's be clear here as it relates to Watson's three captain's picks. When Watson made his selections several weeks ago, he was faced with nothing but bad options. His entire goal was to simply mitigate the damage that three additional out-of-form players might do to his squad.

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Noam Galai/Getty Images

So, no matter who Watson selected during that corny made-for-television special that might have been even less entertaining than LeBron James' "Decision," we would still be sitting here debating just how damaging Watson's picks might end up being next week at Gleneagles.

Rickie Fowler and Jim Furyk will be the only members of the U.S. Ryder Cup team entering the 2014 matches on a hot streak. The final two members of the U.S. side, Jimmy Walker and Matt Kuchar, have played somewhat decently over the past two months, although Walker is a Ryder Cup rookie.  

But while the dreadful form of the U.S. side has been receiving a great deal of attention leading up to the matches, very little attention has been given to just how poorly a large number of European Ryder Cup team members have been playing as of late.

Thomas Bjorn has had just one top-10 finish since June and has a T40 and missed cut in his last two events.

Victor Dubuisson, who made headlines with his miraculous recovery shots from out of the desert during a playoff with Jason Day for the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, has had just two top 10 since losing that playoff to Day back in February.

Martin Kaymer has just one top 10 since his U.S. Open victory back in June. Kaymer has missed the cut in two out of his last five events and has a T16 and T23 at this last two events.

Graeme McDowell hasn't finished better than T36 in his last three events and didn't even make it through to the Tour Championship.

David J. Phillip/Associated Press

Ian Poulter, who has obviously been a beast for the European side in recent Ryder Cups, has just two top 10s all year, the last of which came back in June at the FedEx St. Jude Classic.

Poulter has missed the cut in three out of his last six events and didn't make it past the Deutsche Bank Championship during the PGA Tour's FedEx Cup Playoffs.

Lee Westwood, who was one of Paul McGinley's captain's picks, posted his last top-10 finish at the Players Championship back in May and went through a streak of four consecutive missed cuts between June and August.

Between the DP World Tour Championship last November and the 2014 Barclays in late August, Westwood has posted just three top-10 finishes.

Henrik Stenson had a strong summer of golf with top-15 finishes in three out of the four majors, but he didn't finish better than 23rd at any of the first three FedEx Cup playoff events which eliminated him from the Tour Championship at East Lake.

McIlroy is downright exhausted after a grueling stretch of golf between the Open Championship and the Tour Championship.

"I am tired," McIlroy said last Sunday after the final round of the Tour Championship (as reported by ASAP Sports). "I'm looking forward to a few days off and not seeing my golf clubs for a little while."

Jamie Donaldson and Stephen Gallacher have been playing some decent golf as of late, but both are Ryder Cup rookies who have very little experience even competing in majors.

At the age of 38, Donaldson has played in just 11 majors and has managed to make the cut in only six of them.  

Gallacher, who is 39 years old, has played in only 16 major championships and has made the cut in fewer than half of those events.  

That leaves Justin Rose and Sergio Garcia as the only European Ryder Cup team members who have both strong Ryder Cup and major championship experience, and who are also entering the matches on somewhat of a hot streak.

Rose tied for fourth at the Tour Championship last week, while Garcia has five top 10s in his last eight events and has moved up to No. 3 in the World Golf Rankings.

On paper, at least, the 2014 Ryder Cup is not nearly as lopsided towards the Europeans as the media would have you believe.  

If anything, neither team is playing particularly well heading into the matches.

So the question then becomes, which team will be able to turn things around in the next seven days?

The European side can take solace in the fact that they have not lost on European soil in 21 years.

However, the American side can find some hope in the fact that the captain of that 1993 U.S. Ryder Cup team that won at the Belfry was none other than one Tom Watson.

So buckle up and hold on for what could be quite a wild ride next week at Gleneagles, and let the best, or least bad, team win.

 http://bleacherreport.com/articles