Italy is most well known for its pasta, bread and wine.
What it’s not known to be is a golfing nation.
If only for a week, that figures to change dramatically when the 44th Ryder Cup is contested, beginning Friday, at Marco Simone Golf & Country Club on the outskirts of Rome, the “eternal city.’’
Whatever lack of passion about golf there is in Italy, that will change this week as the U.S. team tries to win the Ryder Cup on European soil for the first time since 1993 at The Belfry on the outskirts of Birmingham in the United Kingdom, while the European side looks to avoid the infamy that would come with that.
The U.S. team currently has possession of the Ryder Cup, thanks to its 19-9 rout in 2021 at Whistling Straits.
The home team has won seven of the past eight Ryder Cups and 10 of the past 12. The U.S. players are tired of hearing about that narrative. But they know the 12 of them are the only ones who can so something about it.
“I think one of the great accomplishments in our game now is to win an away Ryder Cup,” Rory McIlroy, who will be playing his seventh Ryder Cup for Europe, said. “I think with just how partisan it’s become in terms of having a home-field advantage, being able to set the golf course up in a way that benefits your team, I think the next team that wins a Ryder Cup on foreign soil, I think it’s a huge accomplishment.”
Two words encapsulate this biennial affair: passion and pride.
For years, the European players, long believing themselves as second-class citizens and underdogs to the larger and more lucrative PGA Tour, were thought to be prouder of winning the Ryder Cup, more passionate about the cause.
That narrative has shifted in recent years, with the Americans growing tired of getting drummed by the so-called underdogs. There have been more engaged, emotional U.S. team in recent years, and that has enhanced this delicious rivalry.
American players were will sipping champagne from the Ryder Cup two years ago when Jordan Spieth, looking ahead to this week in Italy, proclaimed at Whistling Straits: “If we play like we did this week, the score will look the same over there.”
Read Related Also: New smoking laws for Australia target 'cunning' tactics of big tobacco
Surely, that comment will stand front and center on the European bulletin board at Marco Simone.
“The flight on the way home, we were all a little tender and hungover, but we were already planning what we can do better at the next Ryder Cup to bring it back,’’ European stalwart Tommy Fleetwood recalled of that loss in Wisconsin. “All of us stood there and thought, ‘We want to get our chance back.’ ’’
That chance will come beginning later this week, just miles from the Colosseum in Rome, where battles to the death once took place.
Much has changed since that 2021 Ryder Cup, most notably the birth of LIV Golf, which has driven a wedge between the PGA Tour and DP European Tour and the players who “defected’’ to the lucrative Saudi-backed tour. The PGA Tour still has a ban in place that doesn’t allow LIV players to compete on its tour. The PGA of America, however, is the governing body for the Ryder Cup and has not banned LIV players.
Only one player among the 24 who’ll compete this week is a member of LIV Golf — Brooks Koepka, who won the 2023 PGA Championship and finished runner-up at the Masters. U.S. captain Zach Johnson would have committed captaincy malpractice not to have made Koepka one of his six captain’s picks.
Team Europe doesn’t have a single LIV player on its roster, which is a true new era, with the likes of Sergio Garcia, Ian Poulter and Lee Westwood on the outside looking in on an event that has very much defined their respective careers.
Henrik Stenson was the 2023 Ryder Cup captain for Europe until he was stripped of his duties the moment he joined LIV Golf and was replaced by Luke Donald.
So, there are scars, mostly for Europe, when it comes to personnel. Garcia and Poulter are two of the most prolific and beloved European Ryder Cup players ever, and had it not been for their involvement with LIV, both surely would be a part of this team in some capacity, most likely as vice captains.
The scars for the U.S. team, of course, are rooted in its inability to win on the road.
Five players on the U.S. team — including Scottie Scheffler, the top-ranked player in the world — were not even born the last time the Americans won a Ryder Cup on European soil, spanning six sets of matches.
“It’s really wild,” Scheffler said when he considered that during the losing streak the U.S. has had iconic players like Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson in their respective primes. “Such great players. [It] just proves how difficult it is. But we’ve got a lot of fresh blood on the team this year. Only a handful of guys have played over there. I like our chances. Ignorance is bliss.”
