Ryder Cup Reflection

SBY TONY DEAR • CG EDITOR

Since we last met in the August issue, you, me, and a huge TV audience made up of regular golf fans and general sports fans for whom the Ryder Cup might be the only golf they ever watch, have witnessed the most lop-sided Cup competition in living memory.

Not once since continental European players joined the fray for the first time in 1979, and the total number of matches over the three days rose from 20 to 28, has either side finished 10 points clear.

For this European native who will likely remain a fan of the Blue and Gold for life no matter how American my wife and children are, or how much I love living in the Pacific Northwest, it didn’t make for particularly pleasant viewing and really came as something of a shock.

But then, not really.

I’ve supported the English Premier League’s Southampton FC since I was 5-years old. After moving to Seattle in 2003, I quickly became a Mariners fan. I know the despair of following spectacularly unsuccessful professional sports teams. I know they are capable of winning and actually do sometimes, but I never expect them to.

If Southampton is 3-0 up with five minutes to go, I always think the opposing team will manage to squeeze three, even four, past us before the referee blows for full-time. Likewise, if the Mariners are leading by five after eight and a half innings, I’m convinced the team we’re up against is going to ride a series of hits, walks, stolen bases and home runs all the way to a shocking 6-5 win.

The first Ryder Cup I watched was in 1985 when Europe won for the first time, Sam Torrance holing the winning putt across the 18th green and Seve Ballesteros saying in a TV interview that he felt like he had “won another British Open.’’

Europe then won 10 of the next 16 Cups, amassing 236 points against the USA’s 212. Twice the European team secured three straight wins. And yet, not once during this 30-plus-year stretch did I ever feel like Europe was going to win. The scarcely imaginable feats achieved with smoke and mirrors would inevitably stop soon enough and the house that Seve built would come crashing down.

I did allow myself a moment’s confidence before the 2008 match following two nine-point victories -- at Oakland Hills and the K Club in Ireland – but we got hammered 16½-11½ at Valhalla where Paul Azinger’s strong pod system beat Nick Faldo’s weak sandwich-wrapper gags, Boo Weekley rode his driver like a horse, and Anthony Kim famously stuffed Sergio Garcia in the singles.

We won the next three, but every time the USA had the superior team on paper, and every time I felt we’d get found out.

You’d expect success at a match play event with relatively well-matched teams to be shared with the statistically stronger side coming out on top a little more often. The USA won so many Ryder Cups from the 1940s to mid-1980s because the sides weren’t matched well at all, and it was all the Great Britain team (became GB and Ireland in 1953 when Harry Bradshaw was the first player from the Republic to play in the Ryder Cup) could do to muster a few points between them. But with the inclusion of continental players the teams did begin to measure up more closely. And yet the slightly inferior team made a habit of winning.

How? How did Europe more or less dominate the Ryder Cup for 30-odd years? The fact it had some brilliant players probably helped. Much is made of the bonds between them and, of course, that has been a huge factor. But let’s not forget the quality of the players forming those bonds – Ballesteros, Bernhard Langer, Sandy Lyle, Nick Faldo, Jose Maria Olazabal, Ian Woosnam, Colin Montgomerie, Sergio Garcia, Darren Clarke, Lee Westwood, Padraig Harrington, Thomas Bjorn, Sam Torrance, Mark James, Ronan Rafferty, Gordon Brand Jr., Christy O’Connor Jr., and Paul McGinley. The list goes on.

And let’s not suppose that a couple of scratch handicappers who had bonded exceptionally well would ever stand a chance against J.J. Henry or Brett Wetterich or Jeff Overton or Chris Riley or any of the other lesser-known players that qualified to represent their country.

On top of that though is something seldom mentioned but which I think had a profound effect for much of the ‘80s and ‘90s. Europe played with a sizable chip on its shoulder. It seems odd now, but during the second half of the 20th century, very few invitations were sent to British and European players to compete in the U.S. majors and there was no qualifying process. Yes, there was definitely some mild jingoism involved, but it’s also true to say there weren’t that many British or European players capable of contending. And those that were did receive invites.

The player for whom the shoulder chip grew largest was, of course, Ballesteros who had numerous battles with then PGA Tour commissioner Deane Beman and who didn’t make many friends on this side of the Atlantic. His desire to beat the Americans, and show them just how good he was, fueled a passion that his teammates shared, albeit not to quite the same degree.

And it wasn’t just the players that boarded Seve’s train. The fans did too. Seve was incredibly popular in Britain, and the combination of his drive and decades of Ryder Cup disappointment ignited something within the galleries making them a potent factor.

European players came from countries that played soccer in giant stadiums with tens of thousands of fans chanting the players’ names. I always felt the soccer mentality permeated the European players and their supporters, and helped the team become an almost irresistible force especially against an American team made up of 12 individuals who evidently needed a ping pong table to create any companionship and camaraderie.

So, has that all dried up now? Has Europe become a team of 12 disengaged individuals, unaware of and unaffected by the slights and snubs that powered Seve and his willing compadres for so long? Was the U.S. team able to win so convincingly at Whistling Straits because Europe no longer had Seve’s fire in its belly, and the elements that drew old European teams together are no longer in play?

Possibly, but with Ian Poulter, Lee Westwood, Sergio Garcia and Jon Rahm on this year’s team there would still have been plenty of Ballesteros-based inspiration. And anyone who saw Shane Lowry celebrate holed putts or Rory McIlroy’s tearful interview following his singles match against Xander Schauffele will know the passion still runs deep.

The absence of European fans undoubtedly played a big part in the team not playing the shots or holing the putts that mattered but, surely, the most telling reason behind the disparity in the final result was that the teams weren’t that well-matched this time.

Yes, the U.S. had six rookies to the Europeans’ three, and the visiting side certainly had a lot of firepower. But with no fans to get behind them, they were unlikely to beat the best American team we’ve seen since 1981 when Nicklaus, Watson, Trevino, Floyd, Miller, Irwin etc. stormed Walton Heath outside London.

That team showed that no matter how acclaimed the opposition might be (to be fair Ballesteros was missing from the European team) and how well they bond, or how vocal the galleries get and to what degree the home side is able to set the course up, you’re going to have a tough time against a side with six major champions, the Olympic gold medal winner, the FedEx Cup champion, and four others studs.

No one can say what happens next, but if that core eight can remain fit for Rome in 2023 and beyond, one suspects the U.S. can repair some of the damage Europe has inflicted.

BY TONY DEAR • CG EDITOR

Who could have known that the Ryder Cup, modestly created nearly 100 years ago yet abandoned after just six events because of World War II, would one day blossom into golf’s most popular and fervidly-followed event, as we witnessed at Whistling Straits this year?

Robert Hudson knew. And the biennial competition between the best golfers from the United States and Europe can be forever grateful for his vision and benefaction. In fact, if it wasn’t for the resolve and financial support from Hudson, a prominent Portland, Ore., grocer, there might not be a Ryder Cup today. His impact – 70-plus years ago -- was so significant to the Cup’s survival and subsequent revival that it wouldn’t be a stretch to have the event’s name changed to the Ryder/ Hudson Cup.

After a couple of informal matches — at Gleneagles, Scotland in 1921 and Wentworth, England in 1926 — English seed merchant Sam Ryder sponsored the first official competition (then U.S. v. Great Britain) at Worcester CC in Massachusetts, in 1927. Ten years later, the 1937 event in Lancashire, England produced the fourth American victory in six events. Then in the fall of 1939, Pointe Verde (Fla.) CC was ready to host the seventh Cup, but it was canceled. Everything had changed on Sept. 1, 1939, when Germany invaded Poland, plunging England into the war. The rest of the world followed.

After the war, the Cup didn’t have Ryder, who had died in 1936, to shepherd it. And there was neither the enterprise nor urgency from the Cup supporters or any of golf’s governing bodies to revive it. Then along came Hudson, from a remote corner of America that few knew existed.

Hudson had been dedicated to sustaining golf during the war, putting up $10,000 of his own money to host a PGA event — the 1944 Portland Open won by Sam Snead. He continued to host the event until 1948, and then the 1955 Western Open.

Hudson believed in the Ryder Cup and watched it descend into the dustpan of sports history. He decided to underwrite the cost of the event, covering travel and accommodation for both teams. That included paying for the entire British team’s 5,000-mile journey to Portland. The 1947 Ryder Cup was the first played following the ten-year gap and played at Hudson’s home course — the Portland Golf Club. The Americans won, 11 to 1.

Since that occasion, there have been various format changes. Beginning in 1961, points were doubled and rosters enlarged to 12 players on each side. Continental Europeans joined the GB and Ireland team for the first time in 1979, and another format change established a maximum of 28 points — eight foursomes, eight four-balls, and 12 singles.

Europe won for the first time on American soil in 1987. The 2001 competition was delayed one year (to 2002) because of the 9/11 attacks and the 2020 event was pushed to this past September because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite losing 12 of the past 18 Cups since 1985, the U.S. still holds a commanding 27-14 lead.

But the Cup never returned to Oregon, or the Northwest. The closest was Palm Springs, Calif. in 1955 and 1959. That could be because it rained for the 1947 event and TV executives do not want anything to dampen or delay the competition. San Francisco (2033 at Olympic Club) will be the closest the Ryder Cup has come to our region in 86 years.

Hudson, who died in 1974 at age 87, does have an enduring tournament named after him — the Hudson Cup which started in 1949 as a tribute to his Ryder Cup influence. Played between professional and amateur golfers from Washington and Oregon, it uses the same format as the Ryder Cup. The 73rd edition was held Oct. 14-15 at Oswego Lake CC, ten miles south of Portland. The Pacific Northwest Section PGA professionals defeated the regional amateurs, 10 ½ to 9 ½. The annual Senior Hudson Cup, now in its 30th year, was also won by the section professionals — 11 to 9.

The Northwest, through the Section, continues to honor Hudson’s legacy with a namesake tournament. The world, not so much. A changing of the guard leaves Euros and fans of global golf waxing retrospective how the Atlantic’s tide has turned