SB Nation’s 2016 Ryder Cup Preview

The most experienced American Ryder Cupper ever has tried to warn us. Avoid the hyperbole. Stay grounded. Have some perspective. This is just a start.

"We can't look at the first event — this year — as a make-or-break, win-or-lose situation, fail-or-succeed scenario for our new system," Phil Mickelson said recently. "This first one is a building block."

We're going to ignore Phil Mickelson's plea, however, and approach it within the context of recent failures and proclaim this as the most important Ryder Cup for the American side in this event's history. There may be another one in two or four years that exceeds it, but no match preceding this 2016 edition in Minnesota has been more critical for the red, white, and blue. Some of that weight can be attributed to Mickelson.

The U.S. has gone down in flames at several Ryder Cups over the past 25 years, but never with the kind of five-alarm conflagration that brought the 2014 Cup to a close. The Euros were favored by any measure in 2014, but the whipping was the USA's sixth loss in seven Cups. The repeat captaincy of Tom Watson, from the outside, looked like a failure after three uneven and confusing days. Then we found out from the inside just how big a mess the entire system was, as Mickelson sat just a few seats away from Watson in the postmortem press conference and drove a semi right over his captain.

As far as golf press conferences go, it was the most riveting we've seen in the sport and became far more exciting than the Sunday singles matches we had just watched. It will be the most memorable moment of that 2014 Cup in Scotland and, to this day, still makes the press giddy as they recall the public shanking.

Phil's scorched-earth rebuke of Watson's captaincy — which was also directed at the PGA of America's entire approach to the Ryder Cup — provoked a complete and new evaluation of the system. How could the U.S., with so much talent and a loaded team full of players at the top of the world rankings, keep getting their ass handed to them by Euros? Why couldn't they play well as pairs together? How could they flip the era of Euro dominance? Can they at least lose without embarrassment and turning on themselves? The oft-cited and sometimes derided "Task Force" was formed and we are now apparently at the dawn of a new era.

There will be many more Ryder Cups in the future to test this new approach that, by all accounts, de-emphasizes the power of the captain and gives a larger voice to the players. But the manner in which the last two have ended — and the way we've promoted this overhaul in the process — make this instant opportunity the USA's most critical Cup. Europe has never won four in a row. The last two featured the greatest U.S. collapse in its history, blowing that huge lead on Sunday in the 2012 Medinah Meltdown. And then the eruption and ignominy of that 2014 ending and the disastrous Watson captaincy.

This may be the start of a new #process, but the Americans are back on home turf, are the oddsmakers favorites, and have spent two years attacking the problems that have caused so much agitation and embarrassment. The Ryder Cup is far different from every other week in golf for so many reasons, and one big way is that success and failure are so clearly defined. Aside from Tiger Woods, who always maintained anything but a win was a lost week, it's possible to have great events, great months, great seasons even, and not win. In golf, there are top-fives, top-10s, and strong results to build "form" for the next event or major. At the Ryder Cup, your team either wins or you've failed.

Brian Spurlock-USA TODAY Sports

While Mickelson's undressing of his captain and the PGA's process overwhelmed the fallout of the 2014 American loss, the images that always stuck with me were from the moments just before that infamous press conference. They were the faces on the USA side, such as when Tom Watson gave a conciliatory speech (which included the hindsight hilarious quote "We arrived united and we depart united") and Europe accepted the Cup yet again.

faces of that '14 Ryder Cup closing ceremony, moments before the internal chaos became public theater, are amazing pic.twitter.com/8a0vbURdZT

— Brendan Porath (@BrendanPorath) September 22, 2016

In the most public way, we'd shortly find out what was at that moment a mess on the inside.. But even before that, those faces made no attempt to try to keep up the pretense of a gentlemanly international competition that is promoted as this great exercise in sportsmanship. They were roasting. They were miserable.

Brian Spurlock-USA TODAY Sports

Jack Nicklaus, who once conceded a match as some grand gesture of sportsmanship that ensured a tie in 1969, was recently quoted as saying the "competition was incidental." Winning should not matter, but rather the "important thing is the game of golf and people having good relations and goodwill." That is not the modern Ryder Cup or an accurate reflection of the American side's plight and aims this week in Minnesota.

The process may have made things more palatable for the players this time around, but the pressure is as immense as it's ever been and the sting of a record fourth straight loss will be just as sharp. So, yes, Phil, this may be the start of a new way of doing things. Or it could come apart quickly with yet another fantastic failure.

Another loss would yield that same distaste at the closing ceremony. No one wants another scene of those forlorn and exasperated looks while the Euros drown in champagne. No one wants to wait another two years for France. They're at home and they are the favorites — Watson is long gone and they have a repeat captain everyone supposedly loves. This is the United States' most critical opportunity, and the time is now.