Johnson’s US team aim to break mould and echo in Ryder Cup eternity

The holders can boast seven major winners in their side but it's been 30 years since they won a contest on European soil

Americans call them road games. The label might as well be pain games. Three decades have elapsed since a United States team lifted the Ryder Cup in Europe. Paul Azinger, Fred Couples, Tom Kite, Lee Janzen, Corey Pavin, Payne Stewart, John Cook, Davis Love, Chip Beck, Jim Gallagher, Raymond Floyd, Lanny Wadkins; a decent enough collective but unlikely history makers.

Success for the United States in the last Ryder Cup was so emphatic that giddy onlookers pointed towards a decade of dominance. Since Europe retained the trophy at The Belfry in 1989, the US have only actually prevailed half a dozen times. Bold predictions about reducing Europe - and, in fact, the Ryder Cup itself - to an irrelevance were precisely that. Timing can be everything in this competition; in 2021, it was an undeniable fact that umpteen European golfers arrived at Whistling Straits in questionable form.