I love the Ryder Cup, pure and simple. It is an event without rival on the international sports scene. (Well, maybe the World Cup in soccer, but that’s if you care about soccer.) Every two years (when pandemics don’t interrupt) 12 entirely self-absorbed American athletes must come together and in a week become a “team” to defend the honor of their country. And this year is no exception. The well-documented solipsism on display (Brooks upset about the cup upsetting his routine, Bryson just being on the team, DJ just being DJ, and so on) may well destroy any notion team chemistry by the end of the weekend, and even perhaps ruin the Americans’ chances of wrestling the Cup from the Euros and bringing it back to American soil. We will see.
If you think you’ve seen this movie before, well, you have. Loaded American team of golfers about to engage the Euros with a huge home-field advantage, on a home field course designed and presumably tricked-up to favor the home team in a big way. How’d that work out previously? The Euros, winners of nine of the previous eleven Ryder Cup matches, apparently relish the role of underdog. It certainly seems to play into the notion that the 12 golfers on the Euro side bond and become a “team” much more effectively than the Americans.
Some interesting questions that will be answered by Sunday afternoon:
1. Who will emerge as the star of the Cup for each team.
2. Will the firepower of Rahm and McIlroy, aided by Victor Hovland and Sergio Garcia, be enough to carry the Euros to victory at the longest course in Ryder Cup history.
3. Will the fans (presumably limited by Covid travel restrictions to predominantly favoring the home team) influence the outcome, one way or anorther?
4. Who will play with Brooksie, er, Bryson. And in how many matches will captain Steve Stricker utilize the longest hitter on the PGA Tour on the beastly lengthy Straits?
Will the American rookies carry the day against the old lions on the Euros?
5. Will the shorter-hitting Lee Westwood, likely in his last Cup appearance, win a point?
6. Will Ian Poulter defend his status as a Ryder Cup hero for the Euros?
7. Will the Americans win sufficient points in the four-ball and foursomes on Friday and Saturday to avoid heavy pressure in the singles matches on Sunday?
8. Will the weather coming off Lake Michigan turn the Straits into a European-style links course?
9. Will the heavily-favored Americans triumph on a home course perfectly tailored to their strengths?
10. Which team
will win the Ryder Cup in 2021?
Against all odds,
I believe the Euros will beat the Americans (or tie them and retain the Cup.)
Here’s why.
As I have recounted in prior posts, in September 1987, I happened to be traveling in the Auld Sod. It was Sunday night in Ireland, we were hungry and thirsty (mostly thirsty), so we stopped in a pub in Killarney for refreshment. Expecting a quiet night before the work week started, we walked in and the place was packed and in fact, was going bonkers. Expecting a soccer match or perhaps rugby, I was surprised to see there was golf on the telly. All this ruckus for a golf tournament? I asked the Irish gentlemen next to me what all the commotion was about and, looking incredulous, he informed me it was the Ryder Cup and it looked like Europe was going to win. Now, as an American and a golf fan, it speaks volumes that I had to ask what was on TV. But I was startled by the unbridled enthusiasm exhibited by the crowd. Back home at that time, a golf tournament was watched on TV with all the enthusiasm of a crowd waiting at the local department of motor vehicles, not like it was the Super Bowl.
And of course, on that date the Euros pulled off one of the great victories in golf history. The European team won the Cup for the first time ever on American soil. And, to top it off, they achieved this feat at Muirfield Village in Dublin, Ohio, a course famously designed by Jack Nicklaus, who ironically was the captain of the American team (and who had urged that the British Cup team be expanded from Great Britain to all of Europe). And the roars were heard all over Ireland when Irishman Eamonn Darcy, who previously had failed to win a Ryder Cup match in ten tries, managed in his singles match to defeat Ben Crenshaw by one hole to gain the Europeans a critical point.
I believe I was representative of most American golf fans at that point in time, who simply weren’t concerned about losing to a bunch of Europeans in an exhibition match. At that time the Ryder Cup had all the significance of Der Bingle’s annual Clam Bake at Pebble Beach, the Publinx Open or your local club championship. But on the other side of the pond, you would have thought the Second Coming was about to happen.
Of course, all of that has changed. Perhaps the turning point was the War at the Shore, the unforgettable ending of the American victory in the 1991 Ryder Cup at Kiawah Island. Whatever the catalyst, now Americans pay attention, and patriotic, if not jingoistic, feelings abound among the fans at the tournament site. But those feelings will never reach the fervor exhibited in an Irish pub in 1987, and which still prevails across Ireland, Great Britain and Europe today.
And that’s why should always be favored to win the Ryder Cup. Europe always has, and always will, WANT IT MORE.
Enjoy!
AMDG
R.E. Kelly 2012 - 2021
