Now you're probably going to read a lot of crap over the next few days about how bad a job Jack Nicklaus did, or how badly the U.S. team was prepared, or how little anyone cared because this was not the Ryder Cup. But frankly, I think you should ignore it. The biggest single factor in the U.S. loss was the condition of the golf course and the players' inability to deal with it. Over here, when a tour player hits it into the rough, generally speaking he doesn't have to guess how fast or slow it is going to come out of there. It's going to come out slow.
Golf courses are too perfect.
Rough is long and damp, and fairways are short and dry. At Royal Melbourne, as you could probably see, the rough was short and long, and dry and damp, all at the same time. In other words, you had to be able to read the jumper, something of a dying, if not dead art here in the states. Hence, the U.S. players spent a lot of their time trying to get up and down from over the back, which is next to impossible on an Alistair Mackenzie course, and the Internationals, even if it meant hitting a 9-iron from 200 yards, were either flag high or short of the green. After two shots on every hole the Internationals could have left their wives and girlfriends in charge, and still won.