Minnesota Golfer - Directory 2016 - 37

" Sam Ryder's homely little
trophy is turning into a
blood prize. "
-Sports Illustrated's John Garrity
The
Ryder
Cup
hats that lit a jingoistic fi re, and some
early-round gamesmanship between the
Americans' Paul Azinger and the European
team member Seve Ballesteros involving
wrongly substituted golf balls set
a contentious tone for the matches.
The players' anxiety was palpable, and
no more evident than when Mark Calcavecchia
squandered a 4-up lead with
four holes to play against Colin Montgomerie,
giving the Euros a chance to
keep the Cup.
That half point left the stage clear
for a fi nal-pairing showdown between
Hale Irwin and Bernhard Langer. This
close match worked its way to the last
hole, where Langer missed a 6-foot putt,
screaming in agony toward the sky, and
the U.S. regained the Ryder Cup with a
narrow 13 ½-12 ½ victory.
The combativeness of the matches
Seve Ballesteros and Jose Maria Olazabal during the 29th Ryder Cup
matches held at The Ocean Course in Kiawah Island, S.C.
provoked Sports Illustrated's John Garrity
to write at the time: " Sam Ryder's
homely little trophy is turning into a
blood prize. " It's hard to argue that it hasn't continued to be
ever since.
In 2010 at Celtic Manor in Wales, the Americans were coming
off their fi rst Cup win since 1999 (a victory at Valhalla
Country Club in Louisville, Ky., in 2008) and were looking to
win on European soil for the fi rst time since 1993. The matches
provided a very close back-and-forth contest, with the Americans
taking the opening-day lead 6-4, and the Euros charging
back 5 ½ to ½ on day two for a three-point lead.
It set up another dramatic fi nish in the anchor match of the
event-the pressure of which cannot be overstated for the two
players: Graeme McDowell, who had won the U.S. Open earlier
in the season, and Hunter Mahan.
McDowell took the early lead, but Mahan fought back to
within one on hole 15. On 16, the red-hot McDowell drained a
delicate 15-foot putt to go up 2 and needed just a half on either
of the fi nal two holes for the European win. But the pressure of
the moment appeared to engulf Mahan, who stubbed a chip on
Paul Azinger at the 1991
Ryder Cup.
Graeme McDowell sinks his putt on the 16th hole during the 38th Ryder
Cup at the Twenty Ten Course at Celtic Manor in Newport, Wales.
17, which led to a bogey and then a diffi cult concession of the
hole, the match and the Ryder Cup. McDowell's putt on 16 is
now seen as one of the clutch putts in Ryder Cup history.
Turning Point
One Ryder Cup match sticks out in history for a moment in
which the event turned on a single win. At the Belfry in Sutton
Coldfi eld, England, in 1993, the U.S. trailed the Europeans 7
½ to 4 ½ during Saturday afternoon four-balls. The U.S. team
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