The 2018 Ryder Cup is over and it is being called a great upset. Normally I would have done a team comparison before the Ryder Cup, but I was away for work so instead I am going to do the comparison after the fact and see if the U.S. team really did underachieve. So here are the Power Rankings coming into the competition for the two teams.
The table below has all of the players on each team. Each player has their current power index number followed by their power ranking position in parentheses, as of Sept. 21.
| Europe | USA |
| Justin Rose 18.38 (1) | Tony Finau 17.42 (6) |
| Rory McIlroy 18.00 (4) | Justin Thomas 16.79 (7) |
| Thorbjorn Olesen 11.54 (29) | Tiger Woods 16.75 (8) |
| Tommy Fleetwood 11.42 (31) | Rickie Fowler 16.08 (10) |
| Francesco Molinari 9.50 (50) | Webb Simpson 11.63 (11) |
| Jon Rahm 7.79 (65) | Dustin Johnson 15.58 (12) |
| Tyrrell Hatton 7.42 (71) | Bryson Dechambeau 12.98 (20) |
| Paul Casey 5.42 (121) | Brooks Koepka 11.67 (28) |
| Sergio Garcia 4.96 (135) | Jordan Spieth 6.75 (86) |
| Ian Poulter 1.33 (307) | Bubba Watson 5.83 (111) |
| Henrik Stenson 0.42 (378) | Phil Mickelson 4.21 (163) |
| Alex Noren -0.83 (674) | Patrick Reed 1.29 (314) |
From the first look, it appears the U.S. Team was in much better form coming into the matches. The U.S. team had an average of 11.42 Power Index and an average ranking of 64.4, whereas the Euros had values of 7.99 and 155.5 respectively, giving the U.S. team a 3.47 Power Index advantage in the team averages.
Now let’s look at the top-8 for each team, since only 8 players for each team play in the first 4 sets of matches (Friday and Saturday Four ball and Foursomes). The top-8 for the U.S. team averages 11.42 Power Index and 12.75. The top-8 for the Euro team loses ground to the top-8 on the Americans with a 3.68 Power Index deficit.
If we consider just the top-4 players for each team, the Euros close the gap with an average Power Index of 16.84 and 16.25 rank to the U.S. 16.76 Power Index and 7.75 rank. This brings the U.S. advantage to only 1.93 Power Index average which is pretty insignificant.
Looking at the numbers, the U.S. team should have won, or at least it should have been a pretty close finish. At one point on Sunday, after Tony Finau won his match, the U.S. was still within striking distance and trailed or was tied in 5 matches. If they had somehow managed to turn things in those matches it might have been a much better result for them. But alas, we know the Euros held on in those matches and won the Cup in a blowout.
Being honest, at least 10 of the European team played well over 3 days and the Americans had maybe 4 or 5 play well (Tiger actually played pretty decently while going 0-4, and they say Patrick Reed shot 85 while paired with Tiger in the Saturday Fourball).
So yes, it was an upset, but not as big of one as some would have you believe.