The Ryder Cup is often known as the “Hindsight Cup,” a wry acknowledgment of the inevitable scrutiny and second-guessing that follows each result. This is understandable given that the biennial match has evolved from a three-day competition held every two years into an entity consumed and analyzed around the clock by media and fans alike. With constant speculation and discussion, simply admitting “the other team was better” feels insufficient, honesty that offers neither entertainment nor hope for the losing side’s future prospects. The modern Ryder Cup narrative suggests matches are lost as much as they are won.
Let there be no ambiguity about what unfolded at the 2023 Ryder Cup: Europe delivered a lights-out, unified performance from a team that critics had questioned for its supposed lack of depth. Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm, Viktor Hovland, and Tommy Fleetwood met their heightened expectations, while question marks answered with empathic play. Captain Luke Donald and his assembled crew earned every accolade thrown their way. Conversely, to think it was a mistake-free showing from the Americans is also wildly inaccurate.
Before proceeding, however, let’s address one persistent storyline. Rumors of American team division surfaced during the competition in Italy, sparked by a report of an alleged protest by Patrick Cantlay and, ahem, his hat. The Americans denied these claims and appeared to rally around their collective rejection of the story, transforming what could have been a historic blowout into a contest that remained in doubt through Sunday afternoon. Afterwards, Brooks Koepka called it one of the best teams he’d experienced, and Justin Thomas delivered the definitive statement: “Everybody just is happy to be around each other. There’s usually a couple misfits or people that just aren’t a part of the team, but we all were one.”
Instead, here are the seven mistakes the Americans need to avoid repeating at Bethpage.
Mistake: Time Off
When the American team arrived in Rome, nearly all players had been absent from competition for the previous five weeks. Given the demands of golf’s packed schedule, their decision to rest was understandable, and players maintained their games through matches with each other and practice rounds at their home courses. Yet it’s difficult to ignore the correlation between this layoff and their disastrous start—swept in Friday morning’s foursomes and trailing 9½ to 2½ after three sessions.
“Clearly our start Friday, the entire day Friday, was not what we were looking for,” Jordan Spieth reflected Sunday evening after the defeat. “It’s really hard to come back in an away game when you fall so far behind. If you asked us when we would like to play the Ryder Cup relative to our schedule, I think we would probably say, give us a week after the Tour Championship or two weeks after and then go, instead of five.”
The disadvantage became more jarring when contrasted with European preparation. While Americans rested, their opponents built momentum entering Rome. Ludvig Aberg won the European Masters, Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry competed in their national open, and most of the team played at Wentworth two weeks prior with nine players finishing inside the top 20 there.
“If you look at how they played at the BMW, which is one of the bigger events of the year, they were in great form,” Spieth continued. “They just were playing really good golf, and then they carried it right into here.”
The Fix: Good news, Yankees, Keegan Bradley has already taken care of this. The United States team gathered in Napa last week for team meetings and bonding, and Bradley’s proclamation that this was the “closest team” he’d ever seen should offer encouragement for American fans who yearn for the synergy they observe from European teams. However, without diminishing the benefits of team building, the Procure Championship had been primarily about securing competitive repetitions. In that vein, Scottie Scheffler winning the Procore—with Ben Griffin coming in second and J.J. Spaun, Cam Young and Sam Burns all playing well—is an encouraging development for the Americans.
Mistake: Power Outage
The Europeans arrived in Italy with three of the world’s top four-ranked players, presenting formidable frontline firepower. Against this opposition the United States desperately needed Scottie Scheffler to be the tour de force he had been for the previous two years. Instead, the World No. 1 struggled with his putting in Rome, and the rest of his typically dominant game couldn’t compensate. Scheffler managed just a 0-2-2 record across four matches and was part of a crushing 9&7 defeat on Saturday morning—though that match, and Scheffler’s emotional reactions during it, provided one of the week’s most indelible moments.
The burden didn’t fall on Scheffler alone. Xander Schauffele was supposed to anchor the American team as one of their most dependable performers; instead, his game floated away, failing to register a single point on Friday or Saturday. Meanwhile, Wyndham Clark, who finished second in automatic qualifying and was the reigning U.S. Open champ, was statistically the worst performer of the weekend from either side.
The Fix: As good as Scheffler was then, he enters as the unquestioned king of the sport now. Conversely, in his young career, team events have been slightly underwhelming compared to his usual output (although he was solid in his Ryder Cup debut at Whistling Straits). It’s hard to see the U.S. team winning without Scheffler being Scheffler. Bryson DeChambeau, who’s not the easiest player to play with, will need to be the guy that’s been a major monster over the past two years. And yet, the biggest X-factor is Schauffele. Following his breakout 2024 campaign—where he captured the PGA Championship and Open—this season has been a mixed bag for Schauffele. To call it a struggle would be misleading; Schauffele logged top 10s at the Masters and Open and kept up cut streak alive. In that same breath, he missed the first few months of the year due to a rib injury, did not post a finish better than T-7 in 15 starts and missed the Tour Championship for the first time in his career. He was also the lone player that missed the Napa meetings as he and his wife welcomed their first child. At the 2024 Presidents Cup, Schauffele asserted himself as one of the “dogs” in the locker room, and the Americans absolutely need that dog’s bark and bite at Bethpage.
Mistake: The Invisible Enemy
OK, we’re cheating, as this is not so much a mistake as it was bad luck, because the biggest hit was struck before any matches began. An undisclosed virus swept through the American locker room, hitting several players hard. This could explain why the U.S. stumbled so dramatically in Friday morning’s foursomes, suffering their first-ever sweep in an opening session.
At the time the Americans’ denied any worries, which were understandable for two reasons. First, citing illness risked creating the appearance of making excuses—something that could reinforce the “Ugly American” stereotype that occasionally surfaces at international sporting events. Second, the timing was particularly delicate. While the 2023 Ryder Cup occurred well after the pandemic’s peak, it wasn’t that long before that football and basketball games were occasionally postponed due to team-wide illnesses. Sources told Golf Digest that neither the U.S. team nor the PGA of America ever considered postponing the event, but the optics of playing while sick—and potentially spreading illness—were equally problematic.
The Fix: Get every player a sterile plastic bubble to live in before Bethpage? Again, this isn’t so much a mistake as a poor break, but the Americans will be hoping to avoid the infirmary in Long Island.
Mistake: Time Change Blunder
In an era where the Ryder Cup has evolved into an extravagant spectacle—complete with $1,000 tickets and VR headsets designed to simulate hostile New York crowds for European preparation—it’s easy to wonder how we’ve reached this level of manufactured intensity. Yet amid all the noise, the Americans appeared to overlook one of the most fundamental aspects of international competition: proper adjustment to the time change, showing up just four days before the first matches began.
According to U.S. vice-captain Steve Stricker, this oversight may have cost them. Speaking candidly the week after the defeat, Stricker admitted the team struggled with jet lag throughout the competition and never fully recovered from the abbreviated preparation window.
“I think the time change—I think we need to get in there a day earlier than what we’re doing to help with that,” Stricker reflected. “I think it just takes too long to get guys acclimated to the time.”
The Fix: Luckily the majority of U.S. players live on the East Coast and won’t be facing the problem at Bethpage. However, for those who think this is a ridiculous point, it’s worth nothing Europe has already arrived at Bethpage a week early to make sure their internal clocks are ready come the opening session.
Mistake: Veteran Void
Count us among those who advocated for Justin Thomas to earn a captain’s pick despite his slump at the time. Thomas had served as the emotional core of previous U.S. teams—a quality that seemed especially vital for a visiting squad facing hostile crowds. While Thomas didn’t necessarily play poorly in his defense, his performance fell well short of inspirational, finishing with a modest 1-2-1 record when the team needed a spark. The experience deficit was even more glaring with other seasoned players. Jordan Spieth and Rickie Fowler brought the most Ryder Cup experience to the team with four previous appearances each, yet their combined contribution was just one point across six matches.
The Fix: This rests solely on Thomas’ shoulders, as he’s the only player with more than three Ryder Cups to his name. Following the 2022 Presidents Cup, Thomas was considered a generational talent of Team USA events, someone who the club could build around. Now, after a forgettable Rome outing and missing last year’s Presidents Cup, that title is up for grabs. Thomas has always been one that runs on crowd adrenaline, and there’s a chance he plays in four matches for the U.S. Schauffele and Cantlay are other veteran voices in the locker room, yet the team goes as Thomas goes.
Mistake: Captain’s Picks
This isn’t a shot at the captain’s selections or captain Zach Johnson’s use of them. While the “boys club” storyline gained steam after “Full Swing,” most of the golf cognoscenti agreed with Johnson’s picks. Instead, it’s about their results. Johnson’s six selections combined for a 4-12-4 record during the week. That will not get it done.
The Fix: We listed Thomas above, and Cantlay has been as dependable as any American player over the last decade at team events. Our focus is on the other four wild cards: Burns, Ben Griffin, Collin Morikawa and Cam Young. Morikawa has been the shakiest of the bunch, so perhaps he faces the most pressure, but it’s likely most of the focus will be on Griffin. Despite being a top five player by any metric over the past six months, Griffin is not a household name to most sports fans. Given the build-up around Bradley’s prospects of being a playing-captain, there’s more impetus for Griffin and the rest to prove they belong.
Mistake: Foursomes Performance
The Americans suffered a devasting 7-1 in foursomes in Rome. For context, they won the other three combined sessions, and still suffered a lopsided loss.
In the Americans’ defense, this has been a recurring theme for the away team, as the host team’s ability to set up the course to their specifications creates an overwhelming advantage:
2014: Europe won foursomes 7-1, winning the Ryder Cup by five points
2016: The U.S. won foursomes 5½-2½, winning the Ryder Cup by six points
2018: Europe won foursomes 6-2, winning the Ryder Cup by seven points
2021: The U.S. won foursomes 6-2, winning the Ryder Cup by 10 points
Expanding the data back to 2012 provides an even starker picture: across six Ryder Cups, home teams have dominated foursomes 36½-11½. Meanwhile, in singles and fourballs combined, that margin shrinks to a nearly even 57-55.
The Fix: Taking care of business. As we noted above, the Ryder Cup is essentially decided by foursomes. If the United States doesn’t take advantage of this asset, the Europeans will defend the cup.
Article originally appeared on: GolfDigest.com