Ryder Cup: Why European fans will have to wait until Whistling Straits 2020 to return to Haven
Whistling Straits awaits the wild coos of ‘yee-haw’ and ’mashed potatoes’. Only 723 days to go
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Your support makes all the difference.And then it was over. The champagne-spluttered camera stills showed off Europe’s heroes in their sodden regalia, guzzling ale, devouring steak haché, Tommy Fleetwood looking every bit the celestial icon he is.
The ungracious Americans are already stabbing one another to back and face amid another post-defeat dissection; the egotistical gripes to the New York Times, Brooks Koepka and Dustin Johnson descending into jacked-up fisticuffs, Patrick Reed searing his 7-iron on the grill until it becomes a red-hot poker with which he can lance Jordan Spieth.
The splash of Phil Mickelson’s match-ending strike may still ripple the pond on the 16th hole in Paris, but the man has already returned to the comforts of California to kick-off a new season of the PGA Tour. The remnants and thrill of this year's Ryder Cup will bob gently away into the horizon. For this American team, already dispersed across the continent, there will be no jingo, no unity, just the relentless lone mercenary plod for prize money, FedEx Cup points and ranking status.
Back in Europe, golf will disappear from the back pages and back into the subterranean lurches of Sky Sports, each innocuous and numbingly lucrative event a far cry from France's joy and theatrics, pushing away newborn fans.
There will be the team World Cup of Golf next month, but Italy won’t be represented by Francesco Molinari’s gloriously glum demeanour, rather the unrecognisable smiles of Renato Paratore and Andrea Pavan. Between them a combined age of 52 and a world ranking of 357.
No, only in 2020 will golf return to its Haven. In this case: Haven, Wisconsin. It is no paradise itself but an abandoned airfield spread along a stream along Lake Michigan that was aptly converted into a bastion of long driving. Whistling Straits may appear as a linksland course with its stone bridges, Scottish sheep, lake-locked holes, revetted bunkers and rolling greens, but it’s a goliath of a golf course. An obnoxious American cousin to its highland heritage.
It will measure over 8,000 yards - 700 yards longer than Le Golf National - and be stretched and barbered to harvest every iota of home advantage. There won’t be devouring long rough, slower greens, or a need to take iron from tee. It’s a heavyweight slugger to Paris’ flyweight artistry and for that reason alone America’s thickset soldiers will be clear favourites.
Padraig Harrington is set to be thrust into two years of preparation for the damned mantle of away captain after both Thomas Bjorn and Rory McIlroy praised his aptitude for the role. And perhaps that is fair, considering the Dubliner does have, among his many achievements, a USPGA victory at Oakland Hills to his name which is just a short sail over state line on Lake Michigan.
Steve Stricker - another disciple of the totalitarian ‘taskforce’ - will commandeer control of the Americans and in doing so take on an altogether simpler task than his luckless predecessor. Not only is there the sway of home soil, but for all the fixation on Mickelson and Woods’ decline, it is the Europeans who will take a new-fashioned team to Wisconsin.
Ian Poulter (42), Henrik Stenson (42), Paul Casey (41), Sergio Garcia (38) all relied on wildcard picks in Paris and may well retire from the Ryder Cup - whether wilfully or not - on that triumph. Justin Rose, Francesco Molinari and Alex Noren too are all 35 and above, whereas the US continue to churn a cycle of college graduates to partner the cream of Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas.
So, as always and for good reason, the US will be resounding favourites come 2020. After all, the Ryder Cup rarely affords foreign victory but, in part, it is that tribalistic tendency to invade which makes the competition so captivating. But principally, the greatness is that golf overcomes its elitist status and deep pockets to embody pride, patriotism and unification above all else. A selflessness over solidarity that anyone can attach to whether fan or not.
Whistling Straits awaits open-legged, rough cut to a cinder, for the wild coos of ‘yee-haw’ and ’mashed potatoes’. And then it begins. Only 723 days to wait.
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