| AP Sports Headlines |
Local knowledge, local pride key to Ryder Cup
By RON SIRAK / AP Golf Writer
SOTOGRANDE, Spain (AP) -- Colin Montgomerie said early during Ryder Cup week that the Valderrama course did not suit Tiger Woods' game. He should have included the other Americans as well.
Time after time, U.S. players watched shots tick the limbs of the massive cork trees that overhang the fairways and greens at Valderrama and plop into the rough or a bunker.
Time after time, a drive that seemed perfect ended up with a bad angle to the tiny, subtly undulated greens.
And time after time, American players failed to read the deceptive breaks on the greens or found themselves facing putts they had no chance of making -- as when Woods putted off the 17th green and into the water on Saturday.
"My big concern was how much local knowledge they have and how little we have," U.S. captain Tom Kite said.
As soon as Kite first saw Valderrama last year, he said "it requires as much local knowledge as any course, including Augusta."
But there were other reasons the Americans failed to win the Ryder Cup for the fifth time in its last seven tries:
-- Europe's Ryder Cup rookies outplayed the American newcomers.
Jesper Parnevik, Thomas Bjorn, Ignacio Garrido, Darren Clarke and Lee Westwood combined to win eight points.
Scott Hoch, Woods, Justin Leonard and Jim Furyk won six points, but the combined 2-1/2-6-1/2 record of Woods and Leonard greatly hurt the Americans.
-- Europe's veteran players stepped up and not only won big points but played an active leadership role.
Colin Montgomerie, Nick Faldo, Bernhard Langer and Jose Maria Olazabal combined to win 11 points. Only Hoch won more than two points for the U.S. team.
And while Faldo was instrumental in leading Westwood through their better-ball and alternate shot matches and Montgomerie was the vocal inspiration of the team, it was not clear who the veteran leader was for the United States.
Perhaps too much was expected from Woods, who once again proved he has trouble on courses he can't attack, as he had at the U.S. Open, British Open, PGA Championship and Canadian Open.
-- Europe showed amazing resiliency, coming from behind in match after match, especially in better-ball and alternate-shot play.
In Saturday's better-ball play, Montgomerie and Clarke, Ian Woosnam and Bjorn, Faldo and Westwood all trailed after nine holes and won.
On Sunday, Leonard was 4-up after four holes in his singles match against Bjorn and could only manage a halve.
-- Seve Ballesteros out-captained Kite, showing no hesitancy to sit players he didn't feel good about, limiting Woosnam to only two matches.
No one could have instilled a greater sense of pride in his players than Ballesteros.
"I don't think that local knowledge was the difference," Ballesteros said after Kite blamed the loss on lack of information.
"I don't think the Americans lost," he said. "I think the European team won."
Kite admitted he erred by not bringing more of his players to Valderrama during the summer to learn more about the course.
And perhaps Kite will second-guess himself eventually about whether Mark O'Meara was the best player with whom to pair Woods, a player with a vastly different game than O'Meara.
-- The course at Valderrama Golf Club was just too tight for Woods, taking the driver out of his hands and forcing him to hit a 2-iron so many times off the tee that he handed back his enormous length advantage over other players.
Other long-hitting Americans -- like Davis Love III, the only player shut out in the competition -- had that problem.
-- The Americans missed too many important putts and the Europeans made nearly all of the ones they needed.
-- The Europeans felt they lacked respect because they came from a variety of countries, while their opponents came from a country where fans expect to win everything.
The first five singles matches for Europe on Sunday were played by golfers from Wales, Sweden, Italy, Denmark and Northern Ireland.
In an interesting way, that diversity helped bring Europe together.
"We are going to win the Ryder Cup because we have bigger hearts than the Americans," Rocca said two weeks before the competition. He then went out and beat Woods in singles.
They may not have had bigger hearts, but they had a sense of mission. And that may have been the real key to the Ryder Cup.
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