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Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson Make Wrong Kind of History at Ryder Cup

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Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson are the two most accomplished golfers of their era. But put them in a Ryder Cup match and they are not up to par.

Woods came into this year’s Ryder Cup at Le Golf National in Paris as arguably the hottest golfer in the world. He won the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta the week before, his first win in five years, and surged to second place in the season-long Fed Ex Cup standings.

Maybe he was drained after the emotional Tour Championship win, but whatever the reason, he was just not very good in France. He went 0-4 in Ryder Cup matches over the weekend as Europe pounded the Americans 17.5 to 10.5 to win the Cup.

After going 0-4, Woods’ record at the Ryder Cup dating back to 1997 is a less-than-stellar 13-21-3. Singles is the only event where he has a winning record at 4-2-1.

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Those 21 Ryder Cup losses are the second most of all-time among Americans. The golfer with the most ever Ryder Cup losses is Mickelson.

Mickelson went 0-2 this past weekend to put his all-time record at 18-22-7. He has a higher winning percentage than Woods, but still, it’s not the record one would expect for a guy who has 49 career PGA tournament wins, including five majors.

Over the weekend, Woods paired with “Captain America” Patrick Reed, the hero of the 2016 Ryder Cup for Team USA, and lost four-ball matches on Friday and Saturday to Tommy Fleetwood and Francesco Molinari. Then on Saturday afternoon, Woods and Bryson DeChambeau lost a foursome match to Fleetwood and Molinari.

Did Jim Furyk make mistakes with his Ryder Cup selections?

Finally, Jon Rahm beat Woods in singles competition on Sunday, 2 and 1.

Mickelson and DeChambeau lost to Sergio Garcia and Alex Noren in fourball competition and Friday, then Lefty lost to Molinari in singles on Sunday, 4 and 2.

Team Europe was buoyed by Molinari, who was a perfect 5-0. Garcia went 3-1 to raise his all-time Ryder Cup record to 22-11-7. Those 22 wins are the most ever by a European golfer. It all adds up to continued dominance by Europe in the Ryder Cup.

Consider this: Since 1993, the U.S. has not won the Cup on European soil. And in that span, the U.S. has only won the Cup four times compared to Europe’s nine Cup wins.

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Woods was not making any excuses for his performance.

“We obviously didn’t win the Cup. We didn’t execute like we had planned and wanted to,” Woods said. “For me personally, I went 0 and 4 and obviously that’s very disappointing because those four points aren’t going to our side, they’re going to their side.”

“To lose a Ryder Cup in that way for me personally doesn’t feel very good because I didn’t help my teammates get any points. At the end of the day we came here as a team, and we win or lose as team, and unfortunately we lost this one,” Woods added.

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Dave is a lifelong sports fan who has been writing for The Wildcard since 2017. He has been a writer for more than 20 years for a variety of publications.
Dave has been writing about sports for The Wildcard since 2017. He's been a reporter and editor for over 20 years, covering everything from sports to financial news. In addition to writing for The Wildcard, Dave has covered mutual funds for Pensions and Investments, meetings and conventions, money market funds, personal finance, associations, and he currently covers financial regulations and the energy sector for Macallan Communications. He has won awards for both news and sports reporting.
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