"This would have liberated Kaymer -- and just look at the way both he and Stricker handled the pressure in their clash late on.

"A lot of small things combined to tip Europe into the belief they could win and as the scores came through, their momentum became unstoppable.

"This momentum helped Kaymer -- and so did the Seve influence, as he was playing with something beyond himself. Stricker saw the increasing blue on the scoreboard and began to feel the pressure.

"It's a fine line between that pressure either being turned into a positive or negative, but Stricker knew everyone was relying on him -- which became pretty tough pressure -- and the game just ran away from him."

Stricker's misery was compounded by the fact he was the only player among the two dozen involved who failed to win a point all week -- a statistic that history will not look kindly upon as Americans try to understand how they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

The Wall Street Journal is already debating this, with the newspaper pointing an accusatory finger at the decision by U.S. captain Davis Love III to select Stricker as one of his four wild cards.

"The better questions to ask might be how teams from Europe consistently pull rabbits out of their hats at these Ryder Cups. Europe has now won two in a row, five of the past six and seven of the past nine," the paper wrote on Monday.

"If it were just this U.S. team that lost when on paper it seemed to have the better players, the blame might be easier to assign. But that's not the case."

For Tu, the answer is simple.

"The Europeans were playing for each other, for their leaders and for a purpose -- Seve."