America Gets Embarrassed On American Soil

“You’ve heard the Einstein quote before: The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results,” wrote Shane Ryan in Golf Digest. “It was impossible not to think of it on Saturday night when Keegan Bradley trotted out the same foursomes pairing—Harris English and Collin Morikawa—that had proved so confusing the night before, since Data Golf had it as the worst possible American foursomes pairing of 132 options.” Ryan later continued, “The concept of Bradley doing it again was so outrageous that several of us in the media joked about it … and then he did it.”

I can’t think of a better sports metaphor for present day America than doing the diametric opposite of what conventional wisdom says—twice—and then getting annihilated by the best that Europe has to offer. That’s literally Trump’s trade policy. While the Sunday singles near-comeback helped save some headlines for Team USA, it actually exposed how these massive mistakes cost us a historic day and instead relegated us to historic loser status. This was a colossal ass whooping rooted in executive American hubris that played out well beyond Keegan Bradley’s bizarre decisions, but boy they were bizarre. Trump-level insane.

As Ryan and many others noted, Bradley saved his rookies on Saturday morning so he could play them under immense pressure to make up a gigantic deficit in the afternoon, and Bradley’s own decisions even proved he knew he screwed up. He initially had best golfer alive Scottie Scheffler and Harris English teeing off on the wrong holes on foursomes, and he later switched them up. Europe took a gargantuan 11.5 to 4.5 lead after Saturday, becoming the first road team to sweep the opening four sessions of the Ryder Cup since 1979, going into Sunday with the largest advantage in modern Ryder Cup history, all on the back of a wave of American mismanagement.

This is what the next century is going to look like outside golf, with various foreign countries playing the role of Europe.

This was a story of American failure that extended well beyond the golfers though, who actually salvaged their reputations a bit by demonstrating a ton of mental toughness by draining an avalanche of clutch putts on Sunday to make Europe sweat and give us some great drama during a snoozer of an NFL slate. The New York crowd was horrific all weekend, ultimately becoming a larger headline than the American golfers themselves, with one patron throwing a beer at Rory McIlroy’s wife. The threats towards Rory and Shane Lowry in their Saturday fourball match became so severe that an additional police presence had to be added to the crowd. “I was out there for two days with Erica McIlroy, and the amount of abuse that she received was astonishing,” Lowry said.

The New York attendees embarrassed America in front of the entire world with a constant barrage of invective that went well over the line any civilized society would draw. Not to mention, they didn’t work, as another great metaphor for America unfolded in a moment on Saturday as Rory stepped off a shot, told a patron to “shut the fuck up,” then set back up and stuck it inside of ten feet. America under Trump is all talk and no walk. McIlroy was right to say at the press conference on Sunday that “I don’t think we should ever accept that in golf,” and “I think if I was an American, I would be annoyed. I didn’t hear a lot of shouts for Scottie today, but I heard a lot of shouts against me. It’s like, support your players. That’s the thing.” Not supporting your team is a very American thing right now, as even Justin Thomas tacitly agreed with Rory, lamenting that “Cam [Young] and I just wished that we gave them something to cheer for instead of people to cheer against.”

But this is par for the course for America under Trump. New Yorkers may be a special kind of brash, but deluded attacks on foreigners rooted in fundamental American weakness is kind of our brand across the country right now. At one point in Saturday fourball, I think it was on the 15th fairway, Rory stuck a brilliant approach to around five feet. After American Justin Thomas stepped up next and made contact with his attempt to respond, someone in the gallery said, “Rory you suck!” as Thomas’s ball flew through the air. This crystallized how we present ourselves to the rest of the world under Trump, and it was a viscerally resonant moment for me as an American.

Justin Thomas is shooting, not Rory you doofus. Rory actually had Justin Thomas’ back up against the wall in that moment, because he very much did not suck, and had already forced JT to put it close to the pin to try to avoid losing the hole. This is by far the most American moment of the year for my money. We’re already getting our asses kicked by a team led by Rory who went 3-1-1 while chirping back at the crowd, and as his ball is sitting at near tap-in birdie range, that’s when you decide to tell Rory he sucks? What the hell is wrong with you? Go back to your shanties.

We suck man. America is fucking delusional right now, and we are a truly lost people. I saw a lot of them at the Ryder Cup this weekend. They spent the whole time making wholly illogical decisions and dancing with Trump and going way over the line insulting the Europeans and not supporting Americans all while the Europeans amassed an insurmountable lead, which is what is happening all around the world outside golf right now. Sure, Americans put on a good show on Sunday, but it was a garbage time show, and Europe could dink and dunk its way to victory because they put this away not too long after America did the Trump dance in front of Trump. This is the deluded world the United States has built for itself, and the Ryder Cup was a 72-hour mirror reflecting what we have become right back at us: a washed-up parody of ourselves.