These include individual, national and international pride, a sense of individual and collective purpose, mental and physical strength, mutual respect, personal and cumulative desire and, principally, in the case of Team USA, financial remuneration.
Lacking the former, the colleagues they require to bond with are, week-in, week-out, arch rivals on the PGA TOUR (intercollegiate affiliations can often outweigh the bond of the Stars and Stripes). Jim Furyk’s team, like many before them (and one suspects after), were/will be deprived of their primary (some might say sole) driving force - hard cash.
Team USA is individually and corporately bewildered, collectively confused by the notion that there is no multi-million-dollar prize fund on the line on Sunday afternoon. Just a small, somewhat anonymous gold trophy, communal pride and a sense of countrywide achievement, which, the next week, the following big-money tournament can, and will blank out, sending the memory of a dispiriting defeat into the far distance.
