In five of the last seven Ryder Cups, the European team has come away holding the hardware. Add that to the International team's win at last December's Presidents Cup in Melbourne and you have to wonder: If the United States has had the overwhelming majority of the world's top players over the last 15 years -- which it has -- how come it isn't winning more of these things?

	Jeff Maggert showed how unpredictable match play can be at the first World Golf Championships event.

Start first with the Presidents Cup. Aside from the fact that the International team was formidable (65 PGA Tour wins, nine major titles), the Americans just didn't really seem to care. It may sound like sour grapes now, but that's exactly what several of the players told me privately before the matches even started. Publicly, everyone towed the party line.

"The timing of The Presidents Cup was horrendous for our team," said Payne Stewart, who was not on the American squad. "Our tour had been over for a month and a half. We had a few of the after-tour events already finished, and everybody was probably already looking forward to Christmas and didn't really care about flying all the way to Australia to represent their country when they'd rather be home with their family."

For the Americans, the event had all the enthusiasm of a Monday outing. Why do you think they made Jack Nicklaus the captain? Because they knew nobody would have the gall to turn him down for a spot on the team even if they really didn't want to play.

As for the Ryder Cup, that is truly complicated.

Start with the concept of match play itself. It's entirely unpredictable. Over 18 holes just about anything can happen, and often does. That's why, many believe, the PGA of America -- in need of some type of image fix for its championship -- has resisted going back to match play. The PGA Championship switched from match play to stroke play in 1958.

It's afraid it might end up with a final holding not much sizzle, something like Andrew Magee versus Jeff Maggert, which is exactly what happened when the PGA Tour rolled out its brand new match-play event this year exclusively for the world's top 64 ranked players. This was hardly the match for which the world had been waiting.

This isn't mentioned to slight either player, but rather to illustrate the unpredictable nature of match play. Magee was ranked 50th and Maggert 24th. It took seven rounds to get to the final, and not a single player from the world's top 20 even made it past the fourth round.

"I think it's hard to explain to most people," says Maggert, who beat Magee on the 38th hole in the final to take home the $1 million first prize. "You take the top 50 guys in the world and there's really a fine line between the guy who is 50th and the guy who is first or second."

Actually, over just 18 holes -- where any player can get hot or cold in a hurry, and where there's not very much time to make up a deficit -- that line can extend well beyond the 50th player.

"It's 18 holes a round, " says European Ryder Cup team member Jean Van de Velde. "Over 18 holes, I know my brother can beat me, and he's a 12 handicap!"

So then to start with, no one should put too much stock in the rankings, which this year look as imbalanced as ever. The U.S. team features nine of the top 14 players in the world, while no American is ranked lower than 28th. The Europeans, on the other hand, have only three players in the top 20 and five who are ranked outside of the top 45. Clearly, you would have to make them the underdogs.

"We're more like underpuppies," says Jesper Parnevik of Sweden, playing in his second Ryder Cup. "We definitely have the weaker team on paper."

"That's going to make them want to beat you even more," says Stewart. "It's like when the Bulls kept on winning the championship every time. Whenever they came to a city, I mean everybody wanted to beat them. That's how it is. Everybody wants to beat the best players in the world.

"Just look what happened in the 1980 Olympics with the ice hockey team. The U.S. team was pretty much all college students and ended up beating Russia. It's kind of the same spirit we have to go in there with."

There's more, much more, like how the style of living on the European Tour seems to promote team unity more than the individualistic setup in the states does. And the way the team captains have approached the event.

But all you really need to know is this: Sometimes the numbers lie. In this event, the rankings mean nothing. Emotion and motivation mean everything. That's why Lee Janzen, one of the biggest sports fans I've come across in 20 years of covering the games people play, puts it thusly: