U.S. Ryder Cup team's big collapse defies explanation

• The U.S. needed just 4 1/2 points in 12 singles matches to secure the Ryder Cup
• Veteran leadership was on short supply for the U.S. team
• The Ryder Cup collapse ranks up there with some of the greatest choke jobs in sports

MEDINAH, Ill. — If you play golf long enough, you realize anything can happen. It is a game where the unexpected always should be expected.

But there's no way for a U.S. team like this to squander a 10-6 lead on the final day and fail to reclaim the Ryder Cup, right?

Right?

On a day when the U.S. needed just 4½ points out of 12 singles matches, the Americans fell painfully short in a collapse that was hard to explain and even harder to swallow.

"I don't think any of us really saw this coming, but that's golf," said Nashville's Brandt Snedeker, who lost his match to Europe's Paul Lawrie 5-and-3.

This was the '64 Phillies, Bill Bucker stumbling over a routine grounder and the Oilers in the '93 playoffs at Buffalo all rolled into one.

In the context of golf, it joins a list of collapses that includes Greg Norman at Augusta, Jean Van de Velde at Carnoustie and, yes, Europe at Brookline in '99.

The latter marked the only other time a team that has entered the final day of the Ryder Cup leading by four points has lost.

But that European team was on foreign soil when the U.S. staged its extraordinary comeback. This time, the U.S. was the home team. The Americans were playing in this suburb of Chicago, as all-American a city as you'll find. They had a boisterous crowd behind them, cheering their good shots and sometimes cheering just as loudly at Europe's misfortunes.

And they still went belly-up when the pressure was on. A U.S. team that was so loose, so confident and, yes, so unbeatable during the first two days suddenly looked like it was choking on a golf glove.

It was a day for second-guessing and idle speculation. Would U.S. captain Davis Love III like a mulligan on his batting order? What if Bubba Watson had not carelessly bogeyed the 13th, allowing Luke Donald to halve the hole by getting it up-and-down after hitting his tee shot into the water? Would things have been different if Justin Rose had not made three of the greatest pressure putts in a row to beat Phil Mickelson 1-up?

And what if Rory McIlroy hadn't gotten a police escort in order to make his tee time?

McIlroy's inexplicable tardiness will get lost in all the drama of the day but it is a story unto itself. Roughly an hour before his match was scheduled to begin, European team officials realized he was nowhere to be found on the Medinah Country Club grounds. A few frantic phone calls and texts later, they realized he was still at the hotel.

McIlroy's explanation is that he watched The Golf Channel on Saturday night and failed to realize the graphics that were being displayed were Eastern time, not Central Daylight Time. He assumed his tee time was 12:25 p.m., not 11:25 a.m. hat's why he was running late.

Sorry, but I'm not buying it. Pro golfers usually get to the course at least two hours early in order to get acclimated and warm up. Even with sirens blaring in front of him, McIlroy pulled up just 11 minutes before his scheduled start.

In time, I expect a British tabloid to report the real story, perhaps with photos from Saturday night.

What if McIlroy hadn't made it to Medinah at all? Would that point have flipped to the U.S.? How could he ever have lived it down?

We'll never know.

Of course, it doesn't really matter now. McIlroy arrived in time. At age 23, he was able to loosen up quickly and shake off any cobwebs before going about his business, beating Keegan Bradley 2-and-1.

It was just one of several matches where European players seized the moment, hitting key shots and making clutch putts.

"They played a little bit better than us and they won," Love said in summary.

It is in times like this that we wonder why the Ryder Cup seems to matter so much more to the European team than the U.S. team. For Team Europe, there is no continental divide. How does a 12-man team made up of players from seven different countries come together so seamlessly for a common cause?

For whatever reason, Europe always seems to find a leader when it matters most. On this team, it was Ian Poulter, the plucky Englishman. Poulter won all four of the matches in which he played over three days, including a 2-up victory over Webb Simpson on Sunday.

But it was on Saturday afternoon that Poulter put the European team on his back. In one of the most extraordinary runs in Ryder Cup history, he birdied the last five holes of his four-ball match to combine with Rory McIlroy for a 1-up victory over Jason Dufner and Zach Johnson.

That point proved to be big. Bigger still was the jolt of momentum it gave the Europeans. They went into the evening with a reason to believe.

It was as if Poulter channeled his inner Seve, calling upon the memory and perhaps the spirit of the late Severiano Ballesteros to give Europe a boost in its hour of need.

"The buzz, the electricity – I just felt something might be possible," Poulter said.

The U.S. team lacked that kind of leadership. Four Ryder Cup rookies comprised one-third of the team. As for any veteran leadership, it was in short supply. Phil Mickelson played well all week but he's more like everybody's pal than a take-charge leader. Jim Furyk's Ryder Cup record is 9-17-4 so it's hard for him to speak up.

Tiger Woods? Sorry but Tiger is all about Tiger.

So who fault is it?

When an entire team hits a shank like this, everybody must share responsibility.

David Climer also writes for The (Nashville) Tennessean