The American Ryder Cup team celebrates after defeating Europe 17-11 at Hazeltine on Sunday. Jordan Spieth and Zach Johnson lead fans in a chant before various players uncork bottles of champagne in celebration. It marks the first time since 2008 that the United States has won the Ryder Cup
• Ryder Cup 2016: USA sweep to victory as Rory McIlroy and Europe taste defeat </s> The United States topped the Europeans 17-11 to reclaim the Ryder Cup Sunday afternoon at Hazeltine National Golf Club in Chaska, MN. It was the widest margin of victory for the U.S. since it won by nine points in 1981. The winning point was delivered by Ryan Moore, who wasn't a member of the team until last Sunday evening, when U.S. Captain Davis Love III selected him with his final captain's pick.

The victory vindicated the Task Force the U.S. assembled in an attempt to end recent European domination. Europe had won seven of the previous nine cups. The next Ryder Cup will be played in 2018 at Le Golf National in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, France. </s> The Ryder Cup continues at Le Golf National in Paris as Tiger Woods and Team USA try to catch ...read more via USA Today – https://ift.tt/2OZ0iFN Get More Nigeria Sports News </s> Europe defeated the U.S. to win the Ryder Cup, golf’s premier international team competition.

Europe’s Francesco Molinari clinched the victory after Phil Mickelson hit his tee shot into the water on the 16th hole, giving the Italian a 4&2 win.

Europe entered Sunday’s singles matches with a 10-6 lead at Le Golf National outside of Paris. </s> Chaska, Minn. (AP) — Patrick Reed shook his fists with fury for every big putt he made. Phil Mickelson leaped higher than when he won his first Masters. Ryan Moore delivered the final point in this American masterpiece Sunday at the Ryder Cup.

The 17-11 victory over Europe was their biggest rout in 35 years at the Ryder Cup.

Only this was more than just three days of exquisite golf at Hazeltine. This victory began two years ago in Scotland, when Phil Mickelson publicly criticized U.S. captain Tom Watson and a process that he felt put the Americans in position to fail far too often.

“When put in the right environment, the U.S. team brought out some amazing golf,” Mickelson said. “And we’re bringing back the Ryder Cup because of it.”

Sure enough, that 17-inch gold trophy was gleaming on a table, right next to a couple of champagne bottles on ice.

This wasn’t about being maybe the best team ever assembled.

The Americans were a team, and that was all that mattered. For the first time since 1975, every U.S. player won at least one match. And for the first time since 2008, the Ryder Cup is staying in America.

Four years after Davis Love III saw his team blow a 10-6 lead at Medinah, he watched them make more birdies and eagles than he could count as they filled the scoreboard with American red and took any suspense out of the outcome.

“There was a lot of pressure on these guys over the last couple years,” Love said. “We haven’t had a good run lately, and I’m thrilled for them that they got the win. … This team has been questioned and beat up for a long time, and I’m proud of the way they came together.”

Europe, going for its fourth straight victory, never really had a chance.

Reed outdueled and outshouted Rory McIlroy in a match so dynamic that they halved three straight holes with birdies. McIlroy holed a 60-foot putt up the slope on the par-3 eighth and cupped his hand to his ear to a loud an occasionally obnoxious crowd. Reed followed with a 35-foot birdie putt, wagging his finger at McIlroy. They bumped fists and patted each other on the back. McIlroy’s putter went cold, and Reed holed a 7-foot birdie putt on the 18th hole to secure the 1-up victory.

Mickelson and Sergio Garcia combined for 19 birdies, eight of them over the last five holes. Mickelson made an 18-foot birdie on the final hole, crouched and then leaped in the air, capping off a big week under more pressure than usual because of his strong voice in all these changes.

One of the changes from the Ryder Cup Task Force that Europe mocked was to spread out the captain’s picks until the very end. The last one went to Moore, who was added to the team only last Sunday. A week later, he was celebrating a 1-up victory over Lee Westwood that clinched the cup.

“You’re only as strong as your 12th man right there,” Brandt Snedeker said to him.

There wasn’t much Europe could do. Thomas Pieters had the best showing of any European rookie by going 4-1. That was a lone bright spot.

“They did everything I asked of them. They tried their hearts out. They worked hard. They fought hard,” European captain Darren Clarke said. “The American Ryder Cup team deserved to win. And we’re all gutted and disappointed. And we will be back stronger to fight in two years’ time in Paris.”

Mickelson already was looking ahead.

He had said the work of the task force — primarily for players and former captains to have more input in an event run by the PGA of America — was not about this year but the next 10 years of the Ryder Cup.

Even so, it was sweet to see that trophy just a few feet away.

“We need to build on this,” Mickelson said. “Otherwise, it’s all for naught. We created a very solid foundation this year. … Yes, it’s great that we had success this week, but it’s not about one year or one Ryder Cup. It’s about a multitude, for decades to come.”

About that time, Love popped the cork off a bottle of champagne.

“That’s my cue to shut up,” Mickelson said.

The Americans stood atop a bridge to the left of the 18th green and sprayed champagne on themselves and the crowd, an enormous gathering that sent endless cheers of “U-S-A” and “Red, white, blue” across Hazeltine for three straight days.

For Europe, Westwood was among four players who ended the week without a point.

The Ryder Cup Task Force was dismantled after Love was named captain for the second time, though Mickelson and Tiger Woods remain on a committee for the next Ryder Cup in 2018 in France. Europe has not lost consecutive Ryder Cups since 1993. </s> CHASKA, Minn. — This was not eight years in the making. It was two decades.

Two decades worth of frustration was pent up inside the American team room when it arrived to Hazeltine National this week for the 41st Ryder Cup. And two decades worth of relief was released with the force of popping champagne corks when the Americans put the finishing touches on a 17-11 rout of the Europeans Sunday, capturing the Ryder Cup for the first time since 2008 and only the third time since 1999.

After eight losses in the last 10 Ryder Cups, including the last three, the Americans decided enough was enough.

“We got kicked around for so long,’’ U.S. captain Davis Love III said. “You keep losing and you feel like you’ve got to do something different.’’

Massive changes had been made. A “task force’’ was formed with a goal in mind to right all the wrongs that had been supposedly holding back the Americans, who entered the week having won the Ryder Cup only twice since 1993.

The Europeans publicly and privately snickered at the Americans, seeing the task force as an act of desperation. If we’re being honest, they had an arrogance about them when they crowed about how “flattered’’ they were that Americans were “copying’’ their formula for success. The Europeans acted as if they had all the answers.

Well, this week in a suburb about 30 minutes west of the Twin Cities, it was the Americans who had more answers. They took a 9 ½ to 6 ½ lead into Sunday’s 12 singles.

There was not a single player or captain on the U.S. side who had taken victory for granted overnight considering the fact that the Europeans stunned the Americans in 2012 after trailing 10-6 entering the singles.

Certainly not U.S. captain Davis Love III. He was, after all, also the captain of that 2012 team and had felt the sting of that European comeback ever since … until Sunday.

With all the pressure on them, the Americans extended their lead and won 7 ½ of the 12 singles points, extended the lead to a lopsided win — their second-largest margin of victory, behind only 1981, when they won 18½ to 9½.

There were so many elements to the week that made this U.S. victory monumental beyond the fact that for at least these next two years before the Ryder Cup is contested again, in France in 2018, they put an end to the European dominance.

The task force, until further notice, has been validated. So, too, has Phil Mickelson. His public undressing of 2014 captain Tom Watson right after the matches ended in U.S. defeat in Scotland was the catalyst to the changes made.

New stars were born on the U.S. team, too, with Patrick Reed, who was a revelation at Gleneagles as a rookie, taking over as “Captain America.’’ Reed has not won a major championship, but he has asserted himself as the best U.S. Ryder Cupper. He’s now is 6-1-2 in his two Ryder Cups, and he was the top points earner for the Americans this week with a 3-1-1 record.

It was Reed who Love sent out in the opening match against Rory McIlroy in an effort for the U.S. to stave off any early European comeback. And he defeated Europe’s best player 1-up in an utterly scintillating 18 holes of golf in which the two players should have been playing in a steel cage with boxing gloves on, because it was full-contact golf.

“Yeah, it does hurt,’’ McIlroy said. “We would definitely like to be feeling what the Americans are feeling right now. But saying that, they haven’t felt this in awhile.It’s been eight years since they felt this feeling. They deserve their moment. We’ll come back better and stronger in Paris.’’

The clinching point could not have come from a more fitting player, Ryan Moore, who was the 12th and final player selected to the team. Moore, one of two rookies on the U.S. team, did not even arrive to Hazeltine until Monday afternoon. It was his 1-up victory over Lee Westwood that closed out the Euros.

“This is unbelievable right now to actually get the point that clinched it for us, I guess you can say it was fitting,’’ Moore said.

“I’m just so proud of these guys,’’ Love said. “They had a lot of pressure on them for the last two years. I’ve never seen a team come together like a family like this. So much has happened over the last week. Unbelievable golf. The Europeans played just some stunning golf.’’

But, as European captain Darren Clarke put it: “The Americans played better than we did.

“They holed putts when they had to and we lipped out. But that’s happened the other way around for quite some time.’’

Eight long years to be exact. </s> A despondent Tiger Woods admitted that he “was a contributing factor” as to why the United States surrendered the Ryder Cup to Europe, after losing all four of his matches at Le Golf National.

The 14-time major champion suffered only his second singles defeat in the match-play showdown with a 2 and 1 loss to Jon Rahm as Europe charged to victory.

His miserable Ryder Cup record now stands at 13 wins, 21 losses and three halves.

“It’s disappointing because I went 0-4, and that’s four points to the European team,” admitted Woods.

“I’m one of the contributing factors to why we lost the Cup, and it’s not a lot of fun.

“It’s frustrating because we came here, I thought we were all playing pretty well, and I just didn’t perform at the level that I had been playing, and just got behind early in the matches and never got back.”

The former world number one headed to Paris in high spirits after capping a magnificent comeback season from injury with his first title since 2013 at the Tour Championship last week.

But it all went badly wrong, losing twice in the fourballs alongside Patrick Reed and once in the foursomes with Bryson DeChambeau – all defeats coming at the hands of Tommy Fleetwood and Francesco Molinari. </s> CHASKA, Minn. — His shirt soaked from spraying champagne in a rare Ryder Cup victory, Phil Mickelson already was looking ahead at how to win the next one.

Not only was this a scene from Sunday at Hazeltine, it was eight years ago at Valhalla.

Paul Azinger was in charge of sweeping changes for the U.S. team. He demanded a new qualifying system based on PGA Tour earnings instead of the archaic method of awarding points for top 10s. He doubled the number of captain’s picks to four players. He broke up his 12 players into three pods based largely on personalities.

It worked so well – a 16½-11½ victory over Europe in 2008 – that when someone asked Azinger if he’d like to do it again, Mickelson didn’t give him a chance to answer.

“Zinger in 2010,” Mickelson said that day.

It didn’t happen. For too many years, the PGA of America treated the Ryder Cup captaincy as a lifetime achievement award. It would be wrong to assume the Americans immediately embarked on another losing streak because of the captain. They lost in Wales because they failed to win any of the six matches in the final team session and never caught up. That’s just bad golf. It happens.

Mickelson, however, picked up on something at Valhalla.

That was his point when he publicly criticized the authoritative style of Tom Watson during that awkward news conference at Gleneagles in 2014 after a third consecutive U.S. loss, its eighth dating to 1995.

Mickelson wondered why the Americans got away from player input that worked so beautifully under Azinger in 2008 and worked every year in the Presidents Cup.

“I have been a part of 10 successful Presidents Cups and eight losing Ryder Cups,” he said Sunday during the first of several celebrations. “And it’s very easy to see what the difference is. When put in the right environment, the U.S. team brought out some of their most amazing golf. We’re bringing home the Ryder Cup because of it.”

There were snickers all week that Love wasn’t even the captain. This was as much Mickelson’s team, because it was Mickelson who risked his public image at Gleneagles by calling out Watson, a revered figure in golf, even though his message was aimed at the PGA of America.

Tiger Woods was on that Ryder Cup Task Force geared toward getting players more involved and had strongest influence of any of the five assistants. Steve Stricker was another assistant captain. He will be the captain of the Presidents Cup team next year that will feature many of the same players.

This is what Mickelson wanted in 2008. This is what the Americans have to do now if they want to catch up to Europe.

The series now stands at 26-13-2 in favor of the United States, though that includes too many lean years when Britain was rebuilding from World War II. The modern Ryder Cup dates to 1979 when continental Europe was invited, and Europe has a 10-8-1 advantage since then.

Mickelson had said the success of the task force could not be measured by results at Hazeltine. This was not about the next Ryder Cup but the next 10 of them.

He knew all along that wasn’t the case, which is why the pressure he faced – not to mention the rest of the Americans – was greater than ever.

“The pressure started when some dumbass opened his mouth two years ago in the media center,” Mickelson said, self-deprecating in his moment of glory.

The pressure doesn’t go away.

It was a relief to win, but the Americans haven’t won back to back in the Ryder Cup since 1993, the year Jordan Spieth was born.

It’s not about who’s the next captain. It could be Mickelson, Stricker, Woods or Jim Furyk. It doesn’t matter if the final captain’s pick is five days before the matches begin or if all four are made at the same time.

What matters — what Europe has had all these years — is that players feel as much a part of the process as the people running the Ryder Cup.

“We need to build on this. Otherwise, it’s all for naught,” Mickelson said. “Yes, it’s great that we had success this week. But it’s not about one year or one Ryder Cup. It’s about a multitude, for decades to come.”

Timing is everything, and such was the case Sunday night. Love reached for a bottle of champagne as Mickelson spoke and popped the cork. The sound made Mickelson stop, and he looked over at Love with a smile.

“That’s my cue to shut up,” Mickelson said.

It was time for an American celebration in the Ryder Cup, and one could sense the strong belief they wouldn’t have to wait eight years for another one. </s> ► Alexander Levy wins the European Open

 ► Rory McIlroy wins the FedEx Cup

 ► And the Ryder Cup begins this week

Make sure you look out for a extra special addition of Season Pass coming this Saturday lunchtime where we’ll be announcing an incredible Ryder Cup competition.
In golf, the United States wins the Ryder Cup for the first time since 2008.