Reflections
Team spirit and the unconscious: a psychoanalytic look at the Ryder Cup
By Lawrence Suss
2025
I am not particularly a golf fan, although I watched the final rounds of the Ryder cup between the USA and Europe. I am a former psychoanalyst (now retired), and watched the progress of the competition not only as a Europe supporter but also with an eye for the unconscious.
If you followed the Ryder cup then you will know that after the first two days, Europe dominated the competition but then on the third and final day, the USA roared back (but the roar was not quite loud enough to win). Why had Europe done so well on the first two days but them fallen away on the third? After all, the group players from both sides was very similar (but not quite identical) across the three days.
The first two days required teamwork: two players from one side playing against two from the other. On the final day, it was individuals from each side playing against each other. Does the difference in achievement in teams or as individuals say anything about the wider social contexts and mores of the countries the teams come from? The USA is often suggested to be the country of the individual: individualistic achievement is lauded and the attitude that anyone can make it (rich) is very strong. In contrast, the European team comprised of players from separate countries, so in order to gel, there had to be cross country team work from the start.
My (naïve) thesis is that these simple facts helped form the outcome. At a conscious level, team USA were bonded by their joint affiliation to a single country, America. However, I would suggest that the unconscious, culture driven, Individualistic approach of the Americans played a part in their failure in the first two days to form a sufficiently strong team with their partners. The MAGA slogan carries with it this drive of individualism (for example: self-sufficiency as opposed to social support for those needing it, egotistical self-respect as opposed to respect for non-white Americans and women). We are perhaps at the height of the MAGA movement and no American can avoid being affected by it – it is on our TV screens all the time and I imagine the same must true in the USA, but more so. This social climate played its part so that the USA doubles play contrasted sharply with their results when playing as individuals.
Of course I am not that naïve not to know that form can go up and down over three days (I have in the past played golf, and my former father-in-law was a golf pro). But this year the contrast between the teams’ performances in the doubles and singles games was so stark, I find it hard to put it down to just normal variation. So the question in my mind is this: can we really separate the culture of the American team from the noisy MAGA movement, and did this affect their ability to co-operate with fellow Americans?
These views are personal and are not those of AGIP.
