So happy together

LATER THIS WEEK, the Ryder Cup, golf's biennial competition between the US and Europe, arrives in Ireland. The US team, as usual, has the top golfers in the world. But this year, as usual, the team with the top golfers may very well lose.

The Cup, first officially played in 1927, pits a dozen Americans against a dozen Europeans. Unlike a traditional tournament, the competition at the Ryder includes foursome golf (teams of two hit alternate shots), fourball golf (teams of two play their own balls but only the lowest score for each team on each hole counts), and individual man-to-man play. And the winner of each round is determined not by who has the lowest score, but by who wins the most holes.

On paper, there's little question which side has the cream of the crop. No European golfer has won one of the four major tournaments since 1999. (In the same period Tiger Woods alone has won 11.) In 2004, there was a spell when no Europeans were in the Top 10, for the first time in world rankings history. Currently only two are ranked in the Top 10-at numbers 8 and 10.

But for all their talent, something awful happens to America's top golfers when they have to play as a team in match play. The Americans have only won three of the last 10 Ryder Cups, and, but for a putt missed here and there, they could have lost nine out of 10.

What's going on here? For starters, there's the money-or lack of it. There is no prize money at stake in Ryder Cup play, which perhaps explains why the Americans seem to have trouble getting psyched for the event. David Duval once admitted that he considered the Ryder Cup only an ``exhibition." Tiger Woods has said he could think of ``a million reasons" why winning the relatively unprestigious American Express Championship was more important than winning the Ryder Cup-the figure suggested by the American Express tourney's $1 million purse.

But it's not just that Americans are materialistic. Europeans tend to value community more than Americans, who often deride European countries, with their universal healthcare and guaranteed college tuition, as nanny states. This difference is reflected in the history of golf in America and Europe. In Great Britain in particular, golf has traditionally been a sport played by the common man, on public courses. ``The course is much more an integral part of the town because it was laid out as part of the village green," says Jeff Neuman, coauthor of ``A Disorderly Compendium of Golf." By contrast, golf in the US was long dominated by the private club and populated by the elite.

These differences also seem to play out at the Ryder Cup, as some of the golfers themselves have observed. ``We all come from more of a team-like society than the Americans," Colin Montgomerie, a Scot who has competed in seven Ryder Cups, has said. ``They are brought up to be individuals." America's top players tend to practice alone, compete alone, and travel alone. Twelve players, 12 Gulfstream jets, is the way Wall Street Journal writer Tim Carroll has put it.

By contrast, David Feherty, a former European Ryder Cup player, has described how on the European tour ``there can be 50 or 60 players on one aircraft, and almost the entire field might be staying in just one or two hotels." He says that in European golf, ``it's not the destination that matters; it's the journey."

That togetherness pays off in a competition in which golfers have to play each other's shots. It's no coincidence that Europeans play better in foursome and fourball in the Ryder Cup and tend to fade during the single matches on the last day.

The Americans, meanwhile, don't play well with others. The same factors that make it virtually impossible for anyone to play in a twosome with Tiger Woods at a major-poor Ernie Els was the latest victim at the recent British Open near Liverpool-make it almost impossible for him and a teammate to play well together during a weekend at the Ryder Cup.

This isn't to say that it's hopeless for the US this week in Ireland. But if the Americans lose again, it won't be the upset some sportswriters will describe. Instead, it's a reflection of the fact that the US and Europe are a world apart-and not just in sporting talent.

Steven Stark writes frequently about the culture of sports.