2006 Ryder Cup to renew golf’s most storied rivalry

Jer Isseks Sports Editor

This year’s Ryder Cup is certain to yield an exciting and highly contested three days of golf. It will be played at The K Club in Kildare, Ireland, from Sept. 22–Sept. 24. American captain Tom Lehman will send the ten hottest American golfers into play, along with his two captain’s picks (Stewart Cink and Scott Verplank).

The Ryder Cup is one of professional golf’s oldest traditions. It is unique since it pits the top American golfers against their European counterparts in a three-day, multiple match competition. In contrast to nearly every other tournament held by the Professional Golf Association throughout the year, in which golfers play against each other in an every-man-for-himself format, the Ryder Cup is a team match.
The Ryder Cup is held once every two years at the tail end of the golf season, making it one of the most highly anticipated events in professional sports.

This year’s European team is loaded with top world players and savvy veterans making up their ten. Ian Woosnam, the European captain, has selected Ryder Cup regulars Darren Clarke and Lee Westwood as his two wild-card picks.

A common criticism of the U.S. team is that many of the players, namely Vaughn Taylor, J.J. Henry, Zach Johnson and Brett Wetterich, are inexperienced and only made the team due to the increased emphasis on more recent tournament finishes by the players. Captain Lehman, though, is optimistic about his team’s chances, especially after he took his squad on an early trip to The K Club last month to facilitate team bonding and to study the course layout. Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson had originally planned to skip the trip due to prior engagements, but rescheduled as per Lehman’s personal request, indicating how important they consider a positive team dynamic to be.

The inter-player relations of the European team is still tumultuous, causing something of a role reversal between the two teams. Historically, the U.S. has been the more dysfunctional of the two. One of Woosnam’s wild-card selections, Westwood, was controversial within the European golf world. Danish golfer Thomas Bjorn felt he should have been selected instead of Westwood due to his higher tour ranking. Bjorn had strong words for Woosnam, calling him “pathetic.”

Meanwhile, European player Jose Maria Olazabal has been criticized for failing to play in a recent tournament, choosing to rest instead of attending practices for the upcoming Ryder Cup.

At the Ryder Cup, each team is made up of 12 players. The top ten are selected by a ranking process (different for each team) and the final two are selected by the captains as “wild-card picks.” A total of 28 matches take place over three days. Over the first two days, there are foursome matches (teams of two play with one ball in an alternate-shot format) and fourball matches (two-man teams compete against each other, each player with his own ball, and the player with the lowest score winning the hole). The final day is reserved for singles matches, where each player goes head-to-head against another. All matches are worth one point, with a half-point awarded to both teams for a tie. The team with the most points at the end of the three days wins, and in case of an overall tie, the team who won the previous Ryder Cup retains it.

The Ryder Cup was first held in 1927, the result of a proposal by English seed merchant Samuel Ryder a year earlier. Captaining the American team was Walter Hagen, golf legend and infamous playboy. The British squad was led by Ted Ray, after British star Abe Mitchell could not play due to illness. The historic first match, set at Worcester Country Club in Massachusetts, was won by the U.S. by the score of 9.5 points to 2.5 points.

Over the next 60 years, the U.S. ruled by and large in Ryder Cup play, defeating Britain on all but four occasions as the site of the tournament alternated from Great Britain to the U.S. In recent years, however, the Europeans have dominated, keeping the Cup all but three times since 1985. The most memorable of those three instances occurred in Brookline, Mass. In 1999, when the U.S. capped an unbelievable final day comeback, winning 8.5 out of a possible twelve points and edging team Europe by a single point after American Justin Leonard sank a 25-foot putt on the seventeenth green.

This year, the U.S. is considered far and wide to be the underdog, primarily due to their lack of experience as a team. Woods, Mickelson and Furyk, with thirteen Ryder Cups among them, are faced with the heavy burden of leading the young American squad against the seasoned European veterans in Ireland.