“I was under 4 when I woke up”

A team loaded with former Europeans Ryder Cup It wouldn’t take long for the stars to hit their stride Skechers World Champions Cup — a PGA Tour Champions event that brings together teams of the best players 50 and over from the US, Europe and the rest of the world — and in the second round of the tournament, the Europeans did just that. On a Sunday when torrential rain and howling winds made Feather Sound Country Club, on Florida’s west coast, look, at times, like a scene from “Deadliest Catch,” the Europeans unleashed their fury.

The World Champions Cup is a three-day, six-session competition comprising two days of six-ball play and Scotch Sixsomes (a modified version of alternative shot) followed by two sessions of 9-hole singles on the third and final day. After the first two days, the six-man European team held a narrow 1.5-point lead over the Americans and a 3-point advantage over the Internationals – which took us into Sunday, which was set to be a tense back-and-forth battle with the overall points race so close.

But Europe, as it often does in international team play, had other plans, needing about half a dozen holes in the first set of singles matches to rob the final of any suspense.

In the first away match – the players competed in groups of three, with one representative from each side – Colin Montgomery birdies three of the first five holes; in the game that followed came European captain Darren Clarke, who played four of the first five, a feat matched by European in the third game of the day, Thomas Bjorn. The cigar-chomping Spaniard Miguel Ángel Jiménez also came out hot in heat 4, ending three of the first five before stumbling home to finish in two. But his sloppy finish was picked up by Alex Cejka, who, battling a foul, played the first six holes in five under, where he finished. In the final round was Bernhard Langer, who could only manage two birdies and finished two over – but the damage was already done. When the dust (more like flood) had settled, Europe had a lead of 17 in the internationals and 19 in the US.

Game over? Not officially, but Europe had effectively made nine o’clock a mere formality.

Bjorn, 54, a Dane who played on three European Ryder Cup winning teams and captained another, best summed up his side’s dominance.

“I was four under when I woke up,” he said. “That’s always a good thing. Then you’re in that groove.”

Europe’s thrashing continued in the second wave of singles matches, largely thanks to another Dane, Soren Kjeldesen, one of Clarke’s two co-captains, who had to bat for Cejka, due to Cejka’s shallow back. Kjeldesen – given all but half an hour’s notice that his services would be required – opened with five straight birdies and added another before doubling the 9th to finish at four under. How do you perform this initiation? With four straight birds and one Eaglesso Langer, 68 years young and playing the final round of the day, burst out of the gates en route to his five-under round. In the end, Europe scored 230 points, 16.5 more than the Mike Weir-captained internationals and 25.5 better than the USA.

“We actually played some really good golf,” said the American game captain Jim Furyk. Just not even close well enough to keep up with the fast pace of the Europeans. “Man, they just made a ton of birdies and went out there and won the golf tournament,” Furyk added.

The brightest spot on a gloomy day for Americans was an American player who might have even had regular golf watchers calling Wikipedia: Jason Caron. That’s no disrespect to Caron — just an acknowledgment that two years ago he spent most of his time focusing on his professional duties at the Mill River Club in Oyster Bay, N.Y. Then, in 2024, he played his way onto the PGA Champions Tour, where he finished 21st in points this season. His strong year earned him an unlikely berth in the World Champions Cup, where after a four-birdie performance in his second singles match, he became the top US points scorer for the week, ahead of the likes of Stewart Cink, Steve Stricker and Justin Leonard. “What can I take away?” Caron said next. “I think for me personally it would be like, listen, I get to play with all these guys here.”

Mother Nature has not been kind to the World Cup. After the event debuted in 2023 at The Concession Golf Club in Bradenton, Fla., which the Americans won in a thriller from behind on the final hole, the 2024 edition was shut down when a pair of hurricanes wreaked havoc on the region. This year’s event started under sunny skies but culminated in a day so bad that, for some time, the course looked borderline unplayable. After Europe had reached victory point and the final pair of groups landed on the 9th hole, the champions huddled under umbrellas, blue-and-white striped towels around their necks, looking more chilled than happy.

However, the winner’s press conference, in the comfort of the Feather Sound Club, was a different story. Smile. Joke. Laugh. And even some good-natured ribbing.

“It takes a team to win this,” Montgomerie said. “We need all six or seven, whoever we replaced, and we need all seven to score 230 points, which I believe is, 16 more than the last winning team? I won’t name them…USA.”

Monty wasn’t done.

“This is a big change,” he continued. “That was one big change. It was a great team effort from the bottom line this week, and I’m very proud to be on this team. As I said at the beginning of the week, I am very proud to wear a European shirt and represent Europe as we have several times. It’s good to emulate what the (European) Ryder Cup (team) has achieved this year by winning on American soil. I would say that this team deserves more credit than it actually does. I think it was a bigger victory. Never mind Luke Donald. We’ll go with Darren Clarke for another two years.”

Monty’s teammates roared.

This is Team Europe — at every level of the game. Loose but tightly bound. Fun but focused. Joke-crackers, but ass-ass. And always with an appreciation for the ties that bind them.

“Twenty-eight years ago, most of us played on the same Ryder Cup team,” said Jesper Parnevik, Clarke’s second vice-captain. “Miguel was the vice-captain. I was the player. This year, Miguel is on the team and I’m the vice-captain. No other sport would happen except golf. I think it’s amazing to have that history behind us.”

These threads of the past are, in essence, the beauty of this event, which organizers say they have visions of keeping going for the next 100 years and beyond, with hopes of taking it overseas sooner rather than later. (Sites in Ireland and the Bahamas have expressed interest in hosting, a source close to the event told me.)

“I think as word gets out about this tournament and what it is and how exciting it is and how great it is and how good the golf is, there will be people traveling from all over to come and watch,” Langer said. “I met a gentleman today, he said he flew all the way from Germany just to see me or us play, just for a week.”

“Maybe it was me,” Cejka said.

“You were too,” Langer continued. “However, it takes a while. The Ryder Cup wasn’t the Ryder Cup when it started. It took a few years to get going. I believe this can have the same effect.”