For the first time in some 20 years, Stricker, 58, was not part of the proceedings.<\/p>\n
He played on three U.S. Ryder Cup teams starting in 2008. He was an assistant captain four times. And he was the winning captain in 2021, when the U.S. side posted one of its most lopsided victories<\/a>, 19-9, at Whistling Straits. It was a triumph that suggested the Americans were ready to put a winning streak together.<\/p>\n It never happened.<\/p>\n Sign Up Now. SI Golf Newsletters. Sports Illustrated\u2019s Free Golf Newsletters. dark<\/p>\n Stricker was in Rome as an assistant for the U.S. 16 \u00bd to 11 \u00bd defeat<\/a> and witnessed on TV the recent 15-13 loss that saw the Americans trail by seven points going into Sunday at Bethpage.<\/p>\n Like many in and around the U.S. program, the situation remains perplexing, especially to someone who presided over such a dominant team four years ago.<\/p>\n \u201cI watched every putt, every round at home, and again, it came down to putting,\u201d said Stricker at Feather Sound Golf Club, where he is competing this week in the Sketchers Champions Cup. \u201cThe Europeans find a way to make those putts and we seem to get in our own way and don\u2019t make them when we have to. I don\u2019t know what the answer is.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the first time I\u2019ve seen Jim (Furyk) and I haven\u2019t been able to pick his brain yet. But the teams I\u2019ve been part of, there is togetherness, camaraderie, good times. Got along well.<\/p>\n \u201cI just don\u2019t know if there is a bigger underlying thing that they\u2019re playing for and we aren\u2019t? There\u2019s Seve (Ballesteros), his history and how he mentored young guys, every player he played with. We\u2019ve had guys like that, too, but they\u2019re grasping onto something and hanging onto something else, it seems like.\u201d<\/p>\n Matt Fitzpatrick and Rory McIlroy celebrated Europe’s stunning win at Bethpage. \/ Dennis Schneidler-Imagn Images<\/p>\n The Champions Cup event is a three-team tournament for senior players that begins Thursday and has American, International and European squads.<\/p>\n If Stricker wants to relive some Ryder Cup nightmares, there\u2019s Colin Montgomerie, Bernhard Langer, Thomas Bjorn and Darren Clarke as part of the European team this week. They all tasted their share of Ryder Cup success at U.S. expense. Montgomerie, Langer and Bjorn were all winning captains as well.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not saying that our guys are not passionate about it,\u201d Stricker said. \u201cI mean, we want to win just as much as they do. Maybe more. And maybe that\u2019s what\u2019s getting in our way. They play that underdog role. They come in with a chip on their shoulder and I think we need to embrace that chippiness. I\u2019m just wondering if something got lost in all that.\u201d<\/p>\n Stewart Cink sees some of that as well. He was an assistant along with Stricker at Marco Simone in Italy two years ago and also played on five U.S. Ryder Cup teams.<\/p>\n Four of those were defeats, two by large margins. His only winning experience was in 2008.<\/p>\n And he believes that Keegan Bradley, the U.S. captain who continues to blame himself for the defeat, has been too hard on himself.<\/p>\n Stewart Cink, here at the 2010 Ryder Cup, played on a winning team in 2008. \/ Allan Henry-Imagn Images<\/p>\n \u201cI think Keegan did a great job and the scoreboard is just not a good way to determine how he did,\u201d said Cink, who is also playing in the Champions Cup. \u201cThe players have to decide it on the scoreboard.\u201d<\/p>\n For the U.S., Scottie Scheffler went 1-4. Bryson DeChambeau went 1-3-1. \u00a0Patrick Cantlay went 1-3-1. Those three players went all five matches and if they even slightly improved their records, the U.S. would have made the Sunday singles comeback far more compelling.<\/p>\n \u201cHard to explain it, really,\u201d Cink said. \u201cI saw where our guys had two of the top 11 putters in the Ryder Cup through two days. You cannot win doing that. And we did not have a bad putting team.<\/p>\n “But putting comes down to something in your heart and belief and there\u2019s a fear factor, I think. The European guys … they don\u2019t play like they\u2019re afraid to lose.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I think we kinda play like we\u2019re afraid to lose and I can say that because I\u2019ve been there and I know what it feels like. I kind of felt like that in some of those Ryder Cups. And it seems almost embarrassing to say that but there\u2019s something about the way they are bred to play in the Ryder Cup from a young age and the Ryder Cup means the most. Winning against the United States means a lot to them.\u201d<\/p>\n It is unclear where the PGA of America will go from here. Bradley was a surprise choice to be the captain and he said Tuesday<\/a> he\u2019d love to have another shot at it but doesn\u2019t expect it. He said Tiger Woods should get the role whenever he wants it; Woods said he\u2019s yet to be contacted<\/a>.<\/p>\n It’s unclear who, if anyone, will replace Keegan Bradley as the next U.S. Ryder Cup captain. \/ Paul Childs-Reuters via Imagn Images<\/p>\n Whether there needs to be some change in the system is also up for debate.<\/p>\n Stricker, who is returning from a disk replacement surgery in his neck that limited him to just four events this year, was part of the original Ryder Cup Task Force after the 2014 defeat at Gleneagles.<\/p>\n From that point on, he was part of every Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup until last year, a winning captain for both. While he was not expecting to be part of this year\u2019s squad as an assistant\u2014Furyk filled that role as a past captain\u2014Stricker believes a similar system needs to be embraced. Bradley had two assistants\u2014Gary Woodland and Kevin Kisner\u2014who never played in a Ryder Cup.<\/p>\n \u201cI was part of that that task force and that plan was developed and it make a lot of sense,\u201d Stricker said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s what Europe kind of does. And they\u2019re not afraid to put anybody in that captaincy role, either. They weren\u2019t afraid to put me in there and I hadn\u2019t won a major (Stricker is the only U.S. captain in Ryder Cup history to have not won a major before taking the job.) This year, some of the player records … it was unforeseen. It\u2019s kind of a perfect storm that happened.\u201d<\/p>\n And perhaps that is the perfect storm in reverse of what occurred for Stricker. Dustin Johson went 5-0 in Whistling Straits and hasn\u2019t played in a Ryder Cup since. Cantlay was 3-0-1, DeChambeau was 2-0-1, Colin Morikawa was 3-0-1 and Thomas was 2-1-1.<\/p>\n Scheffler, who had yet to win a PGA Tour event at that point, went 2-1 and defeated Jon Rahm in singles. In two Ryder Cups since, Scheffler is 3-6-1.<\/p>\n Seven of the 12 players on that team were on the 2025 team that struggled. Stricker has a hard time believing that a team of that strength could struggle as it has for the past two Ryder Cups.<\/p>\n No easy answers are forthcoming.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEARWATER, Fla. \u2014 Steve Stricker didn\u2019t miss a minute of the Ryder Cup. Watching from his home in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":330852,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-330851","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-golf","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n
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