Hunter's tears @ Ryder Cup won't be the last

Hunter Mahan tried to find the words.

Instead, he wiped away more tears.

"I was proud to be a part of this team,'' he said, choking back sobs. "Close team and uh. . ."

He stopped. Another tear rolled down his cheek. He shook his head.

A few minutes later, he tried to answer a question about Graeme McDowell. He stumbled through a few phrases before choking out "He just beat me today." His shoulders shook as he tried to hold back his emotions.

Zach Johnson put his arm around his right shoulder; Phil Mickelson took the left one and pulled the microphone away so Mahan's sobs weren't amplified around the room.

Yes, there is crying in the Ryder Cup. There is emotion. There are moments like Monday afternoon when a man -- who had one last chance to make something happen -- came up short. Three times on the same hole. Moments when that man sits in front of a cameras and notebooks, cuts himself open and lets the world see this is, indeed, more than a game.

It has always seemed a bit strange to hear people ask if the Americans just don't care as much about the Ryder Cup as the Europeans do. To hear them wonder why -- or if -- U.S. players lack the passion the Euros have.

Perhaps it's because when you've been there at an 18th hole, when you've seen the passion, the pride, the cheers, the celebrations and the tears, you understand.

Perhaps it's because your first Ryder Cup was at The Belfry in 1989 and you sat there with the American team at the 18th hole and as the players weren't able to finish something they started. They had the Cup won, you see, until four players came to the closing hole with a chance to play hero. And all of them came up short.

Payne Stewart and Mark Calcavecchia watched their drives sail into the water. Stewart took three swings to get out and Calc's next shot found water too. Then Mark O'Meara lost a match 3 and 2 before Fred Couples blocked a 9-iron and lost to Christy O'Connor Jr., at 18 and Ken Green three-putted to lose his match too.

Calc pulled his visor down to hide his tears. Couples buried his head on a sympathetic shoulder. The Americans won the final four singles matches that day, but it wasn't enough. The Ryder Cup ended in a tie and, Europe, the defending champ, kept the Cup.

"We all said how important it was, but not of us realized it until it happened,'' Calc said that afternoon. He added that he'd trade his British Open "for a half a point in a heartbeat."

Four guys couldn't play the last hole that day and that cost the U.S. the Ryder Cup. It wasn't the first of the four. It wasn't the last. It was all of them.

"That,'' Calc said, "was tough to take.''

At Brookline in 1999, Justin Leonard had tears in his eyes at the turn. Nothing was going right. He was 4 down and not holding up his twelfth of the deal. It was so bad Johnny Miller said it would have been best if Leonard had stayed home.

He wiped the tears away when Davis Love III, fresh from his singles loss to Per Ulrik Johansson, joined Leonard's group for moral support. We don't have to remind you what happened a few holes later.

Two years earlier, Stewart learned on a railing in the locker room at Winged Foot on PGA Championship Sunday disappointed he wasn't going to be a captain's choice. He was so passionate about what he knew he could bring to the team, about how much it hurt not to make the trip to Valderrama, he didn't cry, but he came darned close. At Brookline, he made up for what he missed.

As for passion ... Stewart used to crank up Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA'' on the team hall. Ben Crenshaw shook his finger and willed his team to believe in fate. Paul Azinger's team was nothing but at Valhalla. And when Jeff Overton holed out from the fairway, "Boom baby!" was the perfect exclamation point.

That the Americans sometimes settle for fist pumps instead of Sergio Garcia/Seve Ballesteros passion or Colin Montgomerie stares doesn't mean they don't care. It doesn't mean they're not a team.

When there is a spontaneous American reaction -- a "boom baby," Boo Weekley's ride, Crenshaw's tears -- it's viewed as something else across the pond. When the Euros do the same, it's passion. It's caring.

We simply can't have it both ways.

Mahan's eyes were brimming with tears. They had been since that moment on the 17th green when he conceded. And when he tried to speak? Well, if his sobs didn't touch your heart, we can't help you.

Mahan was the last man with a chance. But not the only one with red-rimmed eyes. Bubba Watson had tears. Steve Stricker was probably close.

These players were looking back at Sunday afternoon when they went 0-5-1 as a team. And to Monday when more than a few of them had a chance to get that halve or win outright and it didn't happen.

"I felt more disappointment that I have ever felt," Mickelson said. "We put a lot of heart and energy into it, and we wanted to win awful bad. We really believed we were going to win, and we came within half a point.''

They felt deep down it shouldn't have come down to that.

And when someone asked straight-out if Mahan's emotion -- and the American press conference period -- would dispel the thought that the Americans do indeed care as much as the Euros?

"Rarely have I been happier than winning a Ryder Cup,'' Jim Furyk said. "I've never cried after losing other than at the Ryder Cup. We know what it means to us. We know what you've written in the part. It's your observations, the way you feel. But we know what it means. I'm glad that maybe finally you've all figured it out. And I'm sorry it's in this way.''

Mahan hung in there. He tried to be stoic, but he couldn't. And when his teammates spoke, the doubters listened.

"If you go up and down the line of the TOUR players in Europe and the U.S. and asked them if they would like to be the last guy to decide the Ryder Cup, probably less than half would say they would like to be that guy and probably less than 10 percent of them would mean it," Stewart Cink said.

"Hunter Mahan put himself in that position today. He was the man on our team, to put himself in that position. Hunter Mahan performed like a champ out there today. I think it's awesome. Not many players would do that."

Yes, the Americans care. About the Cup. About each other. They always have.

Late Monday night, away from the glare of the pressroom dais, Mahan finally found the words he couldn't get out earlier.

"The Ryder Cup brings stuff out of you that you don't know you had from an emotional sense, from a golf sense and that's what's personal about it," he told reporters. "You know, I don't think people give us credit for how much we actually care about it.''

After Monday, just maybe they will.

-PGATour.com