Ryder Cup win resuscitates U.S.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Here's a history check. The last time the U.S. had won the Ryder Cup, Chad Campbell was about to start out on the Hooters Tour, Anthony Kim was a ninth-grader, J.B. Holmes was finishing high school and Boo Weekley was scrubbing down chemical tanks in Florida.

It's a long way from 1999 at the Country Club in Brookline, Mass., to what happened Sunday at Valhalla Golf Club, but without that giant, nine-year leap, it's worrisome to chart an upwardly moving graph for the oldest match-play competition in professional golf.

The U.S. team didn't merely win the Ryder Cup; it might have saved it too.

The routine had become depressing and totally deflating for the U.S., after three straight defeats, the last two blowouts.

If nothing else, the U.S. proved you couldn't lose them all. You know, you've got to start somewhere.

Almost from the moment the U.S. finished its 16 1/2 -11 1/2 upset of the favored European team, the scrambling quickly began on how best to explain it. The stack of theories is thicker than Weekley's drawl, but most of them point to the tactics of U.S. captain Paul Azinger.

Surely, it couldn't have happened without his input, zeal and smarts, and a plan that featured altering the points system, doubling the number of captain's picks, installing a course setup with little rough to favor a style of play, getting the fans involved and shamelessly playing up the underdog role with the absence of Tiger Woods.

That was a terrific game plan, but only if it worked.

The truth is, it's what happened on the course that changed the Ryder Cup, and little of that could have been expected.

The most important reason why Europe lost was because its best players were borderline miserable -- exactly what has happened to the U.S. in recent years.

Padraig Harrington, Sergio Garcia and Lee Westwood are Europe's Big Three, but they won no matches in three days, lost seven of them and halved five others.

Oliver Wilson won more matches -- one -- than Harrington-Garcia-Westwood combined.

In 2006 at the K Club in Dublin, where the U.S. was routed, 18 1/2 -9 1/2 , Woods needed a victory in singles to finish with a 3-2 record, while Phil Mickelson got shut out and didn't win a point in four matches.

Mickelson was 1-3-0 and Woods 2-3-0 in 2004 at Oakland Hills in another nine-point blowout, infamously paired together in two losing matches. In 2002 at the Belfry, Woods and Mickelson were both 2-2-1 in a three-point loss to Europe.

The fact that Europe was still close Sunday afternoon at Valhalla, even though captain Nick Faldo was getting virtually nothing from his superstars, is nothing short of miraculous. And although Faldo got raked for resting Westwood and Garcia on Saturday morning, that was the only session Europe won; and his controversial captain's pick, Ian Poulter, finished with the best record on either side, 4-1.

Azinger's formula was unorthodox, but successful, made necessary by the presence of six rookies. Kim, clearly a star in the making, along with Hunter Mahan and J.B. Holmes, lost once in a combined 12 matches. Add Weekley's 2-0-1 mark, and that's the basis for a winning formula, in which eight players had at least two victories. Only Poulter, Justin Rose and Graeme McDowell had that many for Europe.

So by late Sunday afternoon, the champagne showers moved in from the west, a totally different direction.

The players on the U.S. side probably woke up Monday morning a little fuzzier than normal, the aftereffects of the previous night's victory celebration. No one wants to project too far down the road right now, but some of them might now be thinking about making plans for playing on the U.S. team at the 2010 Ryder Cup in Wales.

They're going to be favored again. Chances are that's going to be good for the Ryder Cup, and for a simple reason. For any event to be remain relevant, it has to be competitive, and the Ryder Cup was teetering on the brink.

There is plenty of time to get worked up about it, but it's certain to be good theater, like Valhalla, where there were fans dressed as leprechauns and matadors and others wearing kilts holding up a cardboard cutout of Colin Montgomerie.

How can the U.S. players respond? Simple. They can hold up the Ryder Cup.

thomas.bonk@latimes.com