Xander Schauffele says Team USA won't have to do anything special to end 30 years of misery in European Ryder Cups - and insists nobody on the team cares about them going three decades without an away success.
Schauffele did not make the recent scouting trip to Rome with the rest of the USA team - but says the "group chat was firing up" with comments about Marco Simone and the test it will provide.
And the Americans will have to handle a course USA captain Zach Johnson described as brutal in order to end their long run of losing trips to Europe.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of America's last win on European soil, at The Belfry in 1993, before Schauffele and several other team members were even born.
Schauffele, though, insists the current team isn't even thinking about the weight of history against them as they had back to Europe five years after taking an almighty beating in Paris.
"We’re not really tainted by that sort of talk," Schauffele told Sports Illustrated at an Adidas Golf event.
"People told me we haven’t won since before I was born. I think that’s great, because I don’t really care. I don’t think anyone really cares.
"No one has talked about it, because of course, no one likes talking about losing. It isn’t really something that’s been brought up a lot to us. I’m not on social media a crazy amount, so I haven’t really seen it.
"But none of us are talking about anything of that nature. We’re looking forward to the week and bringing that thing back."
Schauffele was part of Steve Stricker's USA team that trounced Europe in a record 19-9 victory at Whistling Straits two years ago, but he says that success came without the team having to produce anything particularly eye catching in their games.
"Nothing special," Schauffele added about what it will take to win in Italy. "It may sound weird, but we didn’t do anything special at Whistling Straits
"All the boys who were there are aware of that, and we have quite a few repeat guys on the team. We’ll stick behind our stats, our team leaders and our captains and go do our thing."
Ryder Cup rough scouting report… pic.twitter.com/tjbpjofdIqSeptember 9, 2023
The one thing the USA did not do in Paris in 2018 was to play Le Golf National in the correct manner, leading to that embarrassing 17.5-10.5 defeat to Thomas Bjorn's side.
Luke Donald is hoping the visitors will fall into the same trap at Marco Simone, but Schauffele says the team who went to Rome did some good scouting - even though he's expecting the hosts to try a trick or two in the final course set-up.
"A lot of good intel from the boys. Group chat was firing up for sure," Schauffele added of the reports coming back from Rome.
"Some very interesting things about the rough. It looks brutal. There’s like four to six different types of grass in it.
"Depending on where your ball ends up - there’s just no real way to practice for it. The fairways are this tight paspalum grass, as we’re told.
"I’m sure the Europeans tried to trick it up a little bit for our boys that went to go practice. I’m sure it’ll look different when we’re there come tournament time."
