Team spirit key for European Team

The European Ryder Cup team will turn up at Oakland Hills as underdogs to Hal Sutton's U.S. team.

So what else is new?

U.S. teams have entered every match stretching back to 1985 as the stronger side on paper, but that has not stopped the Europeans from winning five and halving one of the nine matches. World ranking positions and major victories count for little in 18-hole match play. Just ask Phil Mickelson. Ask Tiger Woods.

Mickelson was stunned by a 3 & 2 loss to Welshman Philip Price at The Belfry. On paper, it looked like a walk over for Lefty. He was the world No. 2. Price was 119th. Yet Price proved the old adage that "anything can happen in 18-hole match play." Mickelson has gone on to win this year's Masters. Price isn't even on this European team.

Woods learned the "anything can happen" maxim in 1997, his first Ryder Cup. Costantino Rocca duffed him up 4 & 2 at Valderrama. Woods has won seven majors since that day. Rocca can't even break the European Tour's top 150 now.

Quite why Europe has effectively played David against successive U.S. Goliaths has baffled pundits since 1983, when the Europeans started making it a more even match. At least in the 1980s the experts could point to the influence of Seve Ballesteros, Nick Faldo, Bernhard Langer, Sandy Lyle, and Ian Woosnam, major winners all who provided backbone to the European team.

Ballesteros and co. are no longer in the frame for European selection, yet Europe still has the upper hand. One reason Europe continues to confound the oddsmakers rests in the difference between the two tours.

Any player who has played on both sides of the Atlantic will tell you that there is far more camaraderie in Europe than there is in the United States. It didn't take England's Luke Donald long to figure that out after just a few tournaments in Europe this season. Donald, a full-time member of the PGA Tour, joined the European Tour to be eligible to play in the Ryder Cup.

"It's more relaxed in Europe," Donald said. "You are not as pampered as you are in the U.S. It is more a social Tour in Europe. People get together for dinner and go out at night."

Go to any European Tour event and in the evening you will see players of all nationalities out dining together, or sharing a drink. There doesn't seem to be any caste system in Europe. You are just as likely to see players from different parts of the money list dining together as you are players from different nationalities.

Price is a case in point. He turned up at The Belfry two years ago with legitimate questions hanging over his head. Everyone said he was the weak link, the odd man out; everyone except captain Sam Torrance and the other eleven players.

"Sam and the team made me feel so welcome," he said. "I got made to feel that I was part of the team and that I was going to make a contribution. That was very important to me, and it had a lot to do with what I did."

European captain Bernhard Langer will convey a similar team spirit to his players at Oakland Hills, but he won't have to work hard at it. It's a safe bet his players will be more committed to the cause than U.S. captain Hal Sutton's side.

"Team spirit will be fantastic," said Barry Lane, a member of the 1993 European team. "It always is. That's the 13th man on our team."

Ask any team coach and they will tell you that getting players to gel is an important key of success. Few European captains have had to worry about that.

Strange that a team consisting of divergent nations should be more together than another that hails from the same country. Maybe we shouldn't be surprised given that a European penned the phrase "one for all and all for one."

Team spirit, that's what has carried Europe to victory against the odds. It's what will carry them through at Oakland Hills.