John O'Sullivan at Oakland Hills listens to half-hearted attempts to explain US defeat.

Tiger Woods was missing, an empty chair betraying his absence on the dais as the American Ryder Cup team, led by captain Hal Sutton, filed into the media centre. Much like their prospects in beginning the Sunday's singles trailing the Europeans 11-5, their fate in front of the local media didn't appear appealing.

In the end they were forced to endure a cross between the Spanish Inquisition and - rather curiously - a debate on whether Davis Love was entitled to relief while playing his second shot to the 18th green in his singles match with Darren Clarke. The latter line of questioning was bizarre, a case of look at the final scoreboard: 18 ½ - 9 ½. Get over it.

When Woods finally joined his team-mates a couple of minutes later it was hard not to draw the analogy that it was in keeping with his demeanour all week, save for his fourball partnership with former college buddy Chris Riley. The world number two had seemed distant, aloof and oblivious to the demands of team golf.

His late arrival was remarked upon rather pointedly by the first questioner, who ventured "For Phil or Jim or Davis or, I guess not Tiger", before going to ask why the American team have been reduced to perennial losers in the Ryder Cup in recent years.

You'll be staggered to learn that the American team were "disappointed" by their defeat, and there was almost a surly obduracy as they sat there and tried to stonewall their interrogators.

Sutton had opened the press conference by saying how proud he was of his players, that they'd played their hearts out and that he couldn't ask for more. Well, maybe a few points.

His assertion that "there will come another day in 2006 and a whole bunch of these same guys will go back over there to do it again", presumably includes a different outcome.

Sutton pretty much used every lull in the questioning to tell us what a great bunch of players these American stars were. It was almost as if the more often he said this the easier it would be to believe.

Phil Mickelson, who had been pilloried in the press from Denver to New York and all points north and south in between, tried to defend the indefensible as far as his immediate audience was concerned. The world number four ranked player suggested: "We worked hard, all of us up here, to make the team. It's a goal of ours to be one of the best 12 American players to represent our country in the Ryder Cup.

"It's a rare opportunity and a career defining moment for us. When we get here we are under constant ridicule and scrutiny over our play and not coming together as a team and all that stuff we know to be false.

"We want so badly to win this event that when we arrive on the first tee we don't play as though we have everything to gain and nothing to lose. We feel just the opposite almost."

Mickelson's partner on the opening day, Tiger Woods, made a less than impassioned avocation of the "dream team".

"I thought we gelled. We just didn't make enough putts."

That is the shortened version of the transcript.

On the vagaries of the matchplay format and Woods' less than inspiring Ryder Cup record, the player suggested: "I don't like losing, period. We busted our tail and didn't get the job done, and that's frustrating. I had control over five points this week and I didn't get the job done in those five matches. It was frustrating that I wasn't able to contribute to the team the way I felt I could have."

The mike travelled back and forth across the dais, every stopping point allowing a team member to articulate his disappointment. The body language, though, suggested frustration, primarily at the fact that they had to sift through the ashes of another defeat.

If any of them care, it should be the starting point for their two-year journey to the K Club. They should recall how they felt sitting in the media centre that night in Oakland Hills, the European team popping champagne corks and dancing and singing with supporters: that, though, makes the assumption that the Ryder Cup matters to them individually and collectively.