The post-Ryder Cup period is usually marked by the Americans tearing themselves apart, demanding reforms, pondering what they're doing wrong. If the newsmen are lucky, we might get a senior player having a cut at the captain, a la Phil Mickelson on Tom Watson in 2014.
It's a different tale this time around after Europe's clear but hardly surprising defeat in Hazeltine.
Europe's biggest golfing superstar Rory McIlroy is growing weary of the current selection model for the European Ryder Cup team. The business of having to pick whoever goes on a decent run on the European tour that year is old hat.
He argued recently it should simply be the 12 best players in Europe vs. the 12 best players in the US based presumably off the world rankings. Membership of tours should not be a factor.
Padraig Harrington is deeply opposed to this "silly" suggestion. Harrington would appear to have more appreciation of the history of the European tour.
The European tour was very small fry compared to the PGA tour became in the 1970s and 80s. Victory in the Ryder Cup was crucial to the European tour in terms of building status and esteem.
He told Brian Keogh in the Irish Independent.
The Ryder Cup is far too important to the European tour for the man on the ground to be turning around and saying, 'why not just select the top 12 in the world ranking and be done with it.'
That would be silly, wouldn't it?
Harrington is opposed to any changes to the Ryder Cup selection criteria asserting that it's too quickly to alter the formula simply because of one loss.
But most importantly it's about the health of the European Tour.
It is a carrot used by the European Tour. If you want to play in the Ryder Cup and improve your career prospects and all that goes with it, you have to be a member of the tour and play five times. It's not too much to ask anybody.
