US on verge of Ryder Cup victory

After a strong finish to day two the US took a further step towards winning the Ryder Cup back after taking a 10-6 lead into today’s singles.

Picking up where they left off on Friday the US team, led by a rejuvenated Phil Mickelson and an inspired Keegan Bradley, continued to hole virtually everything and comfortably won the morning session 3-1, before the faintest, and I mean faintest, glimmer of hope for Europe broke through right at the very end of Saturday’s fourballs.

The US had already stretched their lead to 10-4, before Donald and Garcia just held on against Woods and Stricker, then by far and away Europe’s star performer Ian Poulter birdied the last five holes to secure another point and give Europe some hope on Sunday.

But as the US need only 4.5 of the 12 points available, it’s hard to make a case for them not winning the Ryder Cup back, particularly if they maintain the high standard of play most of them have shown over the first two days.

Given the situation his team find themselves in Olazabal had no choice but to load the first half of the singles with his best players, and while I think they can make inroads I don’t think it’s going to be enough, there’s too much talent and too many good putters throughout the US team to throw this away now.

While I think Olazabal made a few mistakes with mixing up his pairings and not adopting the US strategy of a big hitter with a good putter, most of the problems have been brought about by the poor performances of a lot of Europe’s players.

Aside from a few players playing well for nine holes here and there the only European player to stand up and take the fight to the US team has been Poulter, he’s won all his matches and has never dropped his head once.

Whereas the American team can point to seven or eight players who’ve excelled themselves on Friday and Saturday, in fact if it wasn’t for Poulter it would’ve been all over by now.

The one chance that Europe can cling to is that without their partners the Americans struggle and that might allow us a way back into the contest, and as that’s what Europe are pretty much pinning their hopes on then it doesn’t look good.

As much as I want Europe to turn it around and emulate the American comeback of Brookline 13 years ago, I think the US will win the cup back with plenty of time to spare.