No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 425: 1991 Ryder Cup Deep Dive

Episode Date: April 28, 2021

The 1991 Ryder Cup changed the event forever. But how? We chatted with many of the key players of the event, including Paul Azinger, Bernhard Langer, Mark Calcavecchia, Dave Stockton, Hale Irwin, Paul Broadhurst, Corey Pavin, Jim Moriarty, Lanny Wadkins, and more. Soly read every book he could find, scoured YouTube, and came up with this two hour episode full of some famous stories, and some that you probably haven't heard. From Seve's antics, his feud with Azinger, Calc's breakdown, a car crash, a rivalry among captains, all the way down to the final putt. This was a blast to put together, and we appreciate you listening.  Some key sources for this episode: Curt Sampson's book "The War by the Shore": https://www.amazon.com/War-Shore-Incomparable-Drama-Ryder/dp/159240796X Bernard Gallacher's book "Captain at Kiawah": https://www.amazon.com/Captain-at-Kiawah-Bernard-Gallacher/dp/1855925664 Golf Digest's "The Rowdy Ryder Cup at Kiawah": https://www.golfdigest.com/story/1991-ryder-cup-at-kiawah Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm going to be the right club today. Yes. That is better than most. I'm not in. That is better than most. Better than most! brought to you by our partner BMW who is of course a global partner of the Ryder Cup and we greatly appreciate the support they've given us on several Ryder Cup special episodes that you'll hear this year as well as the Paul McGinley episode from last year. Over the course of the past year I've scoured the internet for every detail I could find on the 91 Ryder Cup. Red

every book I could get my hands on watched every YouTube video and I can assure you there's never been an episode of this podcast that has taken more hours to produce. In the summer of 2018 we did a two part Ryder Cup oral history covering each event from 1999 to 2016. Starting with 99 was a bit arbitrary, perhaps biased considering my American rooting interest, but also that event was believed to have kicked off a new era of the Ryder Cup as tensions that had been boiling for years finally overflowed into one riot of a weekend. But if you keep pulling on the thread of what led to the controversy of 1999, you end

up back in 1991. So we tracked down some of the key players, captains and attendees to take us back to the event that many say is the one that changed the Ryder Cup forever. They all came down to that lot hope and they started yelling in each other like things as I take these things personally chip. You can get under your

skin and say, if you looked at me and he said, no, no, it's okay. If this is the way you want to play today, we can play this way. We had been getting our asses handed to us. It became urgent for the night space to win it back. Are you

kidding me? That might have been the strangest shot I have ever seen right there. Rangmaru, about five feet in the morning. Every thought I was such a prick at Rydercups. Bald Miser up for about 10 minutes. Dave Stogger said, and hey, we want you to bring the ship home. I've got a funny feeling that's going to come down to my mat.

We both came to the same conclusion that it's a left-hit, but I mean, I'm shocked. came to the same conclusion that it's a left-back button. I mean, I'm shocked. Before we get too far in, I'd like to give some thanks to the PJ of America for some of the audio that you'll hear throughout this series. To Kurt Samson's book, The War by the Shore for many of the anecdotes that you'll hear throughout, to the 2012 golf digest article titled The Rowdy Rider Cup

at Kiowa, from which I've pulled many, many quotes for this episode. To Bernard Gallagher in his book Captain at Kiowa, to Stuart Moore from the PGA tour for helping me set up so many of the conversations you'll hear, and as well all the participants Captain Dave Stockton, Bernard Longer, Mark Calcivecchia, Hale Irwin, Chip Beck, Corey Pave and Paul Broadhurst, Paul Azinger, Lanny Watkins, and Jim Moriarty. Also want to give thanks to the golf channel for some of the audio clips that you'll hear from the Faraday show. There's many reasons that things started to simmer in 1991.

After decades and decades of dominance from the American side, the Europeans had begun to level the scales. And of course, the sporting backdrop for the Ryder Cup was that we had been getting our asses handed to us. This was going to be America, you know, coming back. That's Jim Moriarty, who was there taking photos for golf

digest, and here's US team member Hail Irwin. We were wanting to win badly. It kind of gets the cup back, gets the momentum back in the United States because Europe had seen that through the 80s and rightly so that played better. I think

our players perhaps were maybe just felt like we were supposed to win, because that didn't happen. After the US team barely edged out the Europeans in 1983 at PGA National, thanks to some late heroics from Lanny Watkins, Europe began their run. They trounced the US at the Belphrey in 1985 and then won for the very first time on US soil in 1987 at Mirafield Village. In 89, the Europeans retained the cup thanks to a 14-14 tie again at the Belfry. The competition aspect of this event had not only been leveled, it actually began to tilt in favor of the Europeans for the first time in the history of the Ryder Cup.

The last time the matches were halved in 1969, the teams shared the cup with each side retaining it for a year, rather than the Americans retaining it as they had won the 1967 playing of the event. 20 years later, there was no such offer from the Europeans. We came with a positive mindset, I think, because we had one several times for being like the first time in a long time

if they have made ten each turn. Of course, this is Bernard Longer, playing in his sixth Ryder Cup. We had one several times for things like the first time in a long time, if that makes any sense. Of course this is Bernard Longer, playing in his sixth Ryder Cup. We felt like they probably had more pressure than we did because they hadn't won in a while and they were playing at home. You know, the public was wondering what's going on with the US team and that kind of thing. So we certainly felt even though we had won it the last few times that we were probably the underdog playing on American soil and that there was more pressure on the Americans than or not.

One of the key members of the US side during this era was Lanny Watkins. Already a seasoned veteran, he brought a 15, 9 and 1 record into the 91 event, which was the 17 that he had played on. There was no question. We had heard it and we had heard it and we had heard it plus the Europeans had had a run of winning the Masters with everything from Wusum and 91 and you had Faldon and you had Langer, Sandy Lyle, so they had come over here in one kind of our biggest prize, if you will.

That coupled with their success in the Ryder Cup. Yeah, we wanted it and we wanted it badly. Corey Pavein will be playing in his first Ryder Cup for the American side. Every putt and everything and every shot and everything. It seemed like it was everything with the Amplifier 100 times. Mark Calcivecchi playing in his third Ryder Cup. I think that was the very first Ryder Cup that it became urgent for the United States to win it back. So, and I think our crowd, the crowds that were there

felt the same way. That was a Ryder Cup that we needed to win desperately. Bernard Gallagher noted in his book, Dave has not changed much since the days when we were on opposing Ryder Cup sides. He has a really nice fellow, but underneath there's always been a tough competitor, and I was left in no two minds on my trip to Kiwa that he was desperate to

lead his cup team to victory. I mean, desperate. He also noted, you could not help but feel the Americans were so pumped up about the whole thing that if their team did lose, the nation would be devastated. After all the preparation they put in, after all Dave Stockton's efforts to create the kind of team spirit, the Europeans had enjoyed in 1985, 1987, and 1989, to lose would be nothing short of a national disaster for them. A 12,000 square foot media center was constructed to house 700 accredited journalists, blowing away any previous record for any golf event. Andy O'Brien, the manager of media relations for the PGA of America, noted that, quote, this was the most extensively covered sporting

event over three days in history. Almost two billion people around the world will have the opportunity to watch this year's Ryder Cup. But before the week had even come close to beginning, a major curveball was thrown at US team captain Dave Stockton. The first one they announced me was Captain. I thought it was going to be a PGA West. And when the PGA came up with the television contract, so it's going to be the first one that's going to be televised wall to wall, they needed a three hour time change. They had to find something on these coasts. Did you catch that?

Not only had the Ryder Cup location been changed, the golf course wasn't even bill yet. About eight and a half months before the actual matches, early in the year, I was counting, I was there with Pete Die riding around what was going to be key. At what point there wasn't any grass on the golf course. And I'm looking at him going, how is this going to be ready in eight or nine months? I mean, I was absolutely, totally flabbergast.

You know, there's no permanent clubhouse yet. There's nothing. I mean, it was strictly what was going on and peed to mind and what he was putting together. You know, I was shocked. As mentioned at the top of the show, one of my sources for this podcast is Kurt Samson's book, The War by the Shore,

the incomparable drama of the 1991 Ryder Cup. In this book, he details the following. And as you might guess, the situation is complicated. In 1974, Kiyowo was purchased by Kuwait Investment Company. In 1988, it was sold to the Kioa Resort Association, who spun off the three existing golf courses and the ground for the proposed fourth. The buyer was real estate developer Landmark Land. Landmark had a deal in place with the PGA of America to host the 91 Ryder Cup at another one of their properties, PGA West. But after the 1987 Bob Hope, Tor Pros circulated a petition to never have the hope there again.

After Landmark acquired Kiwa, they announced that they had changed their minds on the rider cup location and it would be held on a golf course that did not exist yet. While the TV window is often cited as the reason for the switch, in some circles it is believed that landmarks key executives knew what they had on their hands with the impending drama of the 91 Ryder Cup, and they could instantly bring fame and popularity to their brand new property. On the same weekend that the 89 Ryder Cup was being contested at the Belfrey, Hurricane Hugo laid waste to the Charleston area. The damage was significant for many residents, but specific to Kiowa, about three months of

prep work was undone. Kiowa was already hard to get to, and fallen trees had blocked roads, and previously shaped areas of the golf course were completely reshapen. No one could get on or off the island except by boat. The director of golf management at Kiowa noted that the hurricane actually made it easier to build the ocean course. No one had time to worry about what was going on out there. The whole county was torn to hell. They were working at night, a lot of night to move stuff, get this thing completed.

And as you might expect there were significant environmental concerns with building this golf course. Here's the full passage from Samson's book. With no one telling him not to, die created his own dunes and legumes, pushed and dug the silty sand the way he saw fit, and devised an ingenious system of underground basins that caught and recirculated the water and chemicals used on the course, thus preventing any wetland contamination. His right hand man, Jason McCoy, came up with a way to restore vegetation to the denuded dunes. By injecting water and fertilizer directly into the mounds of sand, sea oats and beach grass were successfully transplanted in mass for the first time.

It wasn't that dye was a poor steward of the environment, and the weeks of working at night were not necessarily indications of skullduggery. He was just a man on a mission with a very big clock ticking and input from well-meaning bureaucrats would have only slowed him down. It's a wonderful writer-cub venue. You know, it was so rough at that time when they first, it was so new. That's Jim Moriardi again and he had this to share about the unique situation. I went down there to do Pete Dye's portrait out on the land where he was going to build

the golf course because they hadn't done a thing, you know, not a thing. And Pete and I and one of his guys who was the only on-site guy there, there was a trailer and he was the only on-site person. Pete and I and this guy went out into the dunes to take Pete's picture. And the guy brought a pistol with him because there were so many snakes after the hurricane, you know, everything is disturbed and there were so many snakes around. He carried a pistol with him when he went out on the property. So he did the photograph and we came back and Pete's sitting in the trailer. And he looks at his guy and he says, well, have you got any equipment lined up?

And he said, well, no, I was kind of waiting to talk to you, Pete. And Pico's gone, damn it. And he grabs the telephone book. And he leaps through the yellow pages, and he goes to like Bob's bulldozer or whatever it is. And he calls a Bob. And he says, Bob, get your bulldozer out here on Monday morning. And so he just rounded up whatever equipment he could.

And they just started digging. So far we've got a tight timeline and already sensitive landscape and a hurricane. Here's another example of the bureaucratic headache. It was amazing what he was able to do. Pete told me he had to deal with 11 governmental agencies to get permits to work on that land and there was an old logging dam that had been created and Pete wanted to take a little bit of marshland, a few acres of marshland and use it for the golf course. And of course there was this huge uproar from the marshland people. And Pete said, well all right, I tell you what, you give me this, you know, 10 acres of marsh whatever it was. And he said, I'll give you back a hundred acres of marsh. How about that? And the guy said, well, okay. And so Pete took a bulldozer, broke that loss, that old lumber dam that had been built out there, and restored about a hundred acres of marsh so that he could get the ten acres that he wanted. Fourteen miles of underground pipes catch the

water underneath the green grass and recycle up to 300,000 gallons of water per day. The golf course hosting the Ryder Cup usually takes a bit of a backseat to the competition, but this course was different than pretty much anything else in the world to that point. Dave Stockton had a good plan going in. We went and played the course before it even opened. We're like, holy hell, what have we got here? So it was just a challenge, perspective. It was challenging.

Situated on the eastern most point of Kiowa Island, the ocean course has the most seaside holes in the northern hemisphere with 10 holes along the Atlantic and the other eight running parallel to those on the inland side. The courses elevated to provide some views of the ocean, which also exposes it to the winds off the ocean. Gallagher would later say, I must say I was disappointed that the PGA of America had gone to Kiowa, rather than to one of the more established courses in the states, of which there are so many.

There were commercial considerations to take into account, but Kiowa was not the best choice. When you look around Americans see how many championship courses there are with superb hotel accommodations close by, you have to question the decision to choose a course for the match on an island with difficult access and limited facilities and quote The players were staying in villas on the island though Gallagher made sure to note in his book that the European villas were not as nice as the American ones The first time I saw Cuba. I thought The PGA of America was trying to pull a joke on us

There weren't any roads no car car pass, no clubhouse. To get out there, you had to just drive down a sandy road through the bushes. And this was six months before the Ryder Cup. And I thought to myself, there's no possible way they can have a Ryder Cup here. The key was so weird. There wasn't even a clubhouse for us.

It was trailers, two temporary trailers. Yeah, they set up some portable trailers for us that was our locker room. We had a lot of fun with the football team. We had a lot of fun with the football team. We had a lot of fun with the football team. We had a lot of fun with the football team.

We had a lot of fun with the football team. We had a lot of fun with the football team. We had a lot of fun with the football team. We had a lot of fun with the football team.

We had a lot of fun with the football team. We had a lot of fun with the football team. We had a lot of fun with the football team. We had a lot of fun with the football team. We had a lot of fun with the football team. We had a lot of fun with the football team. We had only went as far as the fairway. There was no rust, it was sand. It just went from fairway grass sand. It looked like a link-type setting, but it wasn't really a link course. So it was unique in that regard, but as we played a couple of practice rounds

and felt like we're getting the hang of it, it was also just a matter of how much the wind would blow because the wind would make that course very difficult and it proved so on the certain days of the competition when it got really windy. David Ferretty noted that the course is not like something in Ireland or Scotland. It's like something from Mars. Ian Wusdom said, I don't like walking around it.

As I finally got out there and played the course, I kind of thought the same thing. Like, where are the people gonna walk? How are they gonna get spectators around here? It's just a big giant sand pit. A photographer from London described it as dreadful. I've never worked on anything like it before and I hope I never do again.

It's very dramatic and you get some great pictures, but it's just too physically demanding. I can remember a whole of mother who walked 36 holes a day had blisters all over her feet because none of the sand dunes were solidified every time you

take a step you're slipping unless you're on some of the level shell, cart path, like stuff that they have. And that's just the logistical concerns. The players were also quick to note just how difficult

the golf course was to play. Here's Hale Irwin. He had his way of making those second shots into the greens or third shots in par five, so that matter. Very interesting, very difficult to get a close to the hole on many cases. When the wind came up,

it was really hard. And what was especially difficult was the finishing stretch. Here's Corey Pavan. So when we got up there for the matches, the wind started blowing. And it was blowing, I guess, from the north or northeast.

And the hard part about that wind, besides just the wind itself, was the last five holes or four holes, whatever it is, come into the wind and left to right, which is our is wind to play in as a right hand at golf. Despite the extreme logistical challenges, the golf course was ready in time to Dave's Doctan surprise. I was shocked that the condition they did get the golf course in when we showed up there in September. Throughout history, players who have teed it up in Ryder Cups have noted how different it is playing for a team and playing for your country.

The nerves are incomparable to a normal golf tournament. Couple those nerves with what might be the most difficult golf course in the world, and you've got an entirely different playing field for this competition. And this factor would rear its head in the deciding moments, as the result was more defined by the agony of failure than it was the triumph of victory. The spectating on the course was difficult. And spectating on that course, it was just as difficult when the PGA went there. It's a hard walk for spectators.

But for the Ryder Cup itself, for the playing of the Ryder Cup, it was wonderful. It's such a risk we ward golf course, you know. And you can take your chances and, you know, you can make an eight and you just lose the whole. It really was terrific for a match play tournament. At this time, the European Tour's qualification for the Ryder Cup was simple. The top nine of the European Tour money list were automatically penciled into the team. This included Sevilla Estero's playing in his sixth Ryder Cup, Colin Montgomery in his first, Stephen Richardson in his first, the number one player in the world, Ian Wuz Colin Montgomery in his first, Stephen Richardson in his first, the number

one player in the world, Ian Wusenum playing in his fifth, Sam Torrance in his sixth, Bernard Longer in his sixth, and Rookie's Paul Broadhurst, David Farrity and David Gilford. Jose Maria Olethable and Nick Fowdo were ranked second and third in the world yet were not automatic qualifiers. They were easily chosen as captain's picks, along with veteran Mark James rounding out the squad. The team was top heavy with numbers 1, 2, 3 and 5 in the world leading the charge. Bernard Longer was also ranked 9th in the world, but no one else on the team ranked in the top 30, with Paul Broadhurst and David Gilford bringing up the rear at 93rd and 99th respectively. Here's European team member Paul Broadhurst. It was only the really top end of the variety cup team that were travelling over to the

States. What we call our big five or big six, the likes of Fowl, Woogs, Nam, Langer, Sevey, Alathapal, they were all coming over to the States and playing in all the majors, but some of the less the players, some of the rookies, you know, we were just used to playing in Europe, so we didn't mix with the Americans too often. Yeah, that's a big difference to the PGA Tour and the European Tour Nadeys, where all the players are playing in these world events and majors, and you know, a lot of the European Tour players are based on the PGA Tour Nadeys. So it was a lot different back then.

The US side may not have had the power at the top that the Euros had, but their depth was considerable. The automatic qualifiers included Fred Couples, Payne Stewart, Lanny Watkins, Hale Irwin, Paul Azinger, Corey Pavan, Mark O'Meara, Mark Calcovecchia, Wayne Levy and Steve Payne. Pavan, Levy and Payne were the only rookies among the automatic qualifiers. Here's Mark Calcivec here. Most of us on the team in 91 were on the team in 89, where we more or less blew it. And I was one of the guys that hit it in the water on 18.

They were four of us. And we ended up tying 14 to 14, which, you know, meant that they kept the cup because they wanted the year before at Mirfield Village. We were still a little bit upset about that. We definitely should have won that one. And here's Captain Dave Stockton on how he came up with his final two team members. I was looking at four individuals in my own mind. I was looking at the two that I did pick, Raymond Floyd and Shipback, but also was looking at Tom Watson and Tom Kite.

How they were picked, I basically canvas some of the headguys on my team, Painsture, Taylor one, Lanny Watkins. Keyguys and I knew were gonna play a major part in seeing the solid backbone of the team. And I told them that I was leaning toward Floyd because I wanted to, that was the one pick I really wanted because I wanted to pair Floyd Fred Couples who I thought was gonna be an unbelievably good player and just didn't have the confidence yet that I thought he deserved to have.

And so I told the guys, that's who I want to get, but what do you guys think about the other three? And their conversation said, I don't have to play with them. You're the ones that have to play with them. And it turned out that A'singer was another key when I talked to him. And it turned out that when they decided they would rather have a back, that there was another pairing that I had made. Little did I know that all they were going to draw was Balsaros for three out of the four matches. Gallagher wrote his thoughts on the selection in his book saying, quote, this was a decision

that I am sure disappointed Jack Nicholas, who had indicated he was available. Devastated kite and came as a body blow to Tim Simpson and Tom Watson, the other candidates. As far as Nicholas was concerned, there was no question that he had been passed over because the American players did not want him on the team. There was a time when having Jack Nicholas on the U.S. side scared our players. In 1991, selecting Nicholas would have scared the American players more than us. The Americans would have been more intimidated by Jack's presence than our fellows would have been. The European team arrived into Charleston rapidly thanks to their supersonic transport.

After the brief three and a half hour flight from London, Concord stopped in New York to refuel and was off to Charleston. Gallica requested a flyover of the ocean course at Kiowa on the way. The players and caddies peered out the window, amazed at the course's proximity to the ocean course at Kiwa on the way. The players and caddies peered out the window, amazed at the course's proximity to the ocean, and from an aerial perspective, the fairways looked like they were built out into the ocean. But when the pilot flipped the toggle to lower the landing gear, it didn't. A wheel was stuck. Everyone on board endured a few moments of anxiety as the jet continued to circle.

A member of the flight crew lifted the carpet and forced the gear down manually. Here's David Farrity discussing Concord on Golf Channel. Yeah. I'm not sure even that I enjoyed the one writer cup that I did play in, but I'm enjoying the fact that I did play in it. It's kind of like going to the gym, you know, what's nice to have done.

I remember the excitement of being picked, getting on Concord in London with the rest of the team and my family, my son, Jay, and a cockpit, and takeoff, landing in Charleston. We flown across the Atlantic, took about three hours, and we landed in Charleston, and there was... The whole airport was surrounded by people. They were hanging off the perimeter fences. There were so many people I couldn't believe it, and I turned to my friend Sam Tarn, who

I played with in the Ryder Cup and traveled with so many years. I said, Sam people I couldn't believe it, and I turned to my friend, Sam Tarns, whom I played with in the writer cup and traveled with so many years. I said, Sam, I can't believe I big this event is. It's, you know, all of these people have shown up. To see us, he says they're here to see the plane. You're idiot. Let's take a quick break to check in with our friends at Precision Pro Golf.

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a move that impressed Gallagher. But the goodwill earned from that gesture was short-lived. David Faraday and his teammates were walking into a situation in an atmosphere that was completely different than any Ryder Cup to date. Here's Paul Broadhurst. I guess I didn't really know what to expect, you know, to be my first Ryder Cup.

I mean, what transpired does obviously, I guess, a little different to what I was expecting. Fairet was telling me, he said he's in the team room, and somebody comes up behind him. He doesn't know who it is, and he starts rubbing his shoulders. And Sebi's rubbing his shoulders, and he looks at me, says they're even nervous. And Fairet, he says, yeah, I'm nervous.

And Sebi says, me too, He says, I sheet myself this event." The 91 Ryder Cup has been memorialized as the war on the shore or the war by the shore depending on who you ask. And that name can be traced to significant world affairs in 1991. In August of that year, a failed coup in the USSR essentially ended the Cold War. And the previous winner was marked by the success of the Persian Gulf War, where a US-led coalition drove the Iraqi army out of Kuwait. It was considered a great success for the U.S. and that enthusiasm spilled over.

Kiawal Island is surrounded by military presence between a naval base and air force base, and many retired military. One of the biggest things, as I recall, is motivation in a way was we were involved in the Gulf War, and the United States involved in the Gulf War. For whatever reason, that seemed to surface the patriotism in this country that we had not had in quite a long time. And I think that spilled over into the the docks, the feelings amongst the American players, and I cannot speak to the Europeans, but they certainly had a stake in that as well. It was quite turbulent times around the world.

We didn't know what was going to happen with the Gulf War, if it was going to escalate, what was going to happen with it. So, it kind of brought us together both sides in a way. Storm and Norman Schwarzenegoff, right? There was that jingo-wastec, really really in a lot of respects, kind of patriotism because of the sort of juggernaut of what that Gulf War was. Well, the Gulf War just happened. There were some camouflage hats and stuff.

I didn't wear any of that. I felt like what those guys, it was way more important, more significant than playing a golf match. So I just, I didn't partake of that, okay? That was everybody to his own feelings, but I was there to play golf and not make any kind

of statement along those line. There were some guys took it to extremes. I wasn't one of them. We were intense. Not just in, in the sense of a golf, but I think intense, in the sense of a nice spirit. Probably hyping the interest of a dog, but I think in 10% of a nice spirit. Probably hyping the interest in the event, but at the end of the day, probably to the

detriment of the writer cup as a whole. And I would guess that some of the players in it felt the same way, that it got a little bit over the top. I always think about Marv Levy from the Buffalo Bills, you know, when he was going back, you know, he went to so many consecutive Super Bowls and he was going back and some interviewer said, Marv, is this a must win situation? And Levy, who was a sort of a closet historian, looked at him, he said, must win situation. He said, this is a football game. World War II was a must win situation." The Europeans definitely took notice.

Yeah, I thought it was weird to read headlines in the magazines and papers and even on the news or something saying the war on the shores. Clearly, we felt Gaul's is so far removed from a war, where yes, we're competing for the right of cup, which was brought into the world by Samuel Ryder to enhance the friendship between or have a friendly competition in a sense between the British and the Americans at the time, which then became Europe against America. There was not about war and killing and hurting and, you know, that kind of thing. So that was very strange for us and kind of shocking. Colin Montgomery declined the interview request for this podcast, but he's quoted as saying,

when Pave and Pate emerged in desert storm hats, that was the end. Were they completely oblivious to the fact that we had troops over in the Gulf, too? Chip Beck was a part of the US team in 1989, and here's his interpretation of the buildup and the spillover into 91. What was so interesting about the lead up and what made this so contentious was, I felt like the European had a hard time unifying

their team in 89. I don't know why it was, but it seemed like Sandy Lyle didn't have a lot of admiration for Nick Fowldo. It seemed like they had a lot of contention amongst the different nationalities of their team. It just felt that way to me. I'd say that. And then once the Gulf War hit his theory. I think everybody loved to gang up on the America. And it everybody ganged up on us. And it was easy for them to unify their team against the America.

That's the way I felt about it. And I just remember thinking, wow, they all hated you know. Whereas I never felt that before. Bernard Gallagher has said a lot about the 91 Ratter Cup over the years. I reached out requesting an interview for this podcast. He replied saying, I really feel over the years I've said enough about the 91 Ratter Cup. Therefore, sorry, but I wish to decline your kind invitation to be interviewed. In a 2012 golf digest article, Bernard Gallagher is quoted as saying, still, I was surprised

when Corey Paveon appeared on the first tee wearing his battle fatigue hat. I felt that that was rude and unnecessary. In his autobiography, Sevy wrote, David Stockton, the American captain, and several of the players acted in the most regrettable fashion, as if winning was a matter of life and death. At the opening ceremonies on Thursday, four F-16 jets all piloted by desert storm vets performed an eardrum ringing low altitude flyover, and an 11-minute performance from the 24-man U.S. Marine Corps silent drill platoon ensued. The Europeans were beyond peeved at this point. Sports Illustrated's John Garrity, who covered the ceremony, wrote that the Europeans look

like Soviet dissidents forced to witness a made-a-parade of weaponry in Red Square. Despite the underlying current, what gets lost in the history books is that the week did not start contentiously. Here's US Captain Dave Stockton. When we arrived at Cuba, the only night that we didn't have anything going on was on Tuesday night. So I planned to have this cookout. I specifically knew who I wanted to invite. I wanted to invite the European team and their family.

No PGA officials are officials from their party. And I wanted to do the same. I wanted to have our families, our players. No PGA officials. I wanted us to be out there and just have a good time. And that's what we did. There's no animosity with the players. We live with these guys you're around.

That thing on Tuesday night made me feel that was the highlight for me of the week because we got together, talked, we're wearing shorts, drinking beers, just having a good time. But on the way to the Wednesday night Gallaudinner, all hell broke loose. We had seven limos I believe and we got there to this convention deal at the center where the party's gonna be and I'm missing four of my eight guys I have my twelve guys what I didn't know is the third and four limos ran together that accident happened because the fairies wife She'd distracted the driver and it was raining and she grabbed him or something by the shoulder He slammed on brakes within three more cars or boom, boom, boom. Wow. I never knew that detail.

Yes, David. I mean, of course it goes back to Ferry. What do you expect? Steve Pate was seriously hurt about 16 inch crews across his sternum, and where he flown in the limo and hit the corner of the bar as it was in the limo. I was just shell shock. Here's Mark Calcivecchia.

You know, Steve Pate went flying and got really banged up and I saw this red case look like the next morning and it was a shade of green and purple and there was just literally no way he could play so... This would throw an enormous wrench in the plans for Captain Stockton. And the only reason in my mind the matches were that close because I was going to put Payton, Payton, my two UCLA Bruins, put them together and I don't think they'd lost the point.

Peyton was playing better than anybody on the team. So I was supposed to play with Steve Peyton the first day and the second day and he couldn't play the first day. There was just no way I could even believe he played on Saturday. Here's Bernard Gallagher again to Golf Digest in 2012. The tournament dinner Wednesday night was a farce in more ways than one. First there was a car crash on the way to Charleston. The Americans treated it like there had been a death.

Then Steve Payt walked in having only suffered a few bruises. End quote. Brett Fisher, the physiotherapist for the US team, noted that the accident was even more severe than the Americans insinuated. Both Corey Pave and Ann Payne Stewart had whiplash injuries to the neck, but didn't want to be distractions. Pate could not hide his injuries. We really kind of were down to 11 players,

and that was it. It brings back sore memories of that day. I mean, it was just, it was something that shouldn't have happened, and it didn't really hurt the team. The accident would have a significant downstream effect on the matches. But you're taking not necessarily the biggest name, but you're taking the guy that's playing the best.

And I had him paired with Paven, and I paired my guys together psychologically. And Paven has a unique game. I mean, he's not a long hitter, he's a fighter, and takes more, you know, let it go. And calling him the volcano or something. He's got a temperament too, but he was ready to play that week. And it just took, okay, here's my number one player, first seed, and okay, you can't play. I mean, that's all there you could. It was totally devastating to me because it affected my parents. That's what it was. I mean, I only got one single match, so that's fine. That's on Sunday, but I'm gonna use Peyton Baybon all four matches as I was gonna play couples

and Floyd and Peyton and Aiden here and back. So I've got three and my 14 is basically set for at least three or out of the four matches on Friday and Saturday, and now I'm losing one third. And it just, it did not only not pay that, but it's not paving out, and I had to put in with people that he hadn't been used to playing practice runs with. The car accident was not the only fireworks that were set off that night. Well, it's the PGF America doing a highlight tape, and it's pretty much all American players and not many Europeans. So here again, us as players, we don't have anything to do with that, but it's, you know,

somebody from the PR department of PGA took it to a new level. You know, whether they were trying to pump us up or piss them off, I don't know, but it was, it did a little bit of both. It was very noticeably lot-sided. You know, at the time we had many major winners and we were actually dominating World Golf to some extent, you know, with Debbie and Taldo and Lyle, with them, I tell a lot of the ball

there were some of the best players in the world. And then to watch that video was quite late into our faith. You know everybody noticed we were slated but you know we took notice of it and we so we'll let our club to the talking. Yeah didn't go down too well I mean we have to restrain Ken Scottfield out. See you at the time He really was miffed about it. He wanted to get up on stage. And I have to have him say them. And then we had to hold him down.

But it was stranger. Something like the history of the rider cup. And it always always saw with American players. So that was obviously to try and rub the Europeans up the wrong way, obviously. Bernard Gallagher quote, the film they showed at the dinner was a joke. All they showed were Americans hitting shots. Kent Showfield, then the executive director

of the European tour, was all for walking out, but we stayed to the end. End quote. Dave Stockton was mortified. I worked really hard for two years, not to give the Europeans any full, full, full, and borrowed material. Be a good host, they've turned this video on about the Europeans and the Americans and in

my mind the Europeans version ran for two minutes and ours ran for 20. I'm sitting there shell-shock I've got two of my guys are in the hospital, Floyd and Pate are being checked out, Pate being the most serious. It was a disaster. In fact they've now canceled having that gala dinner. You know, we're trying to, we're trying to play our best off, and yet we're going to drive an hour in a limo and a rainy night and then just show a production on the screen that just diminished the Europeans terribly. Again, Gallagher, quote, during the opening ceremony, President Bush appeared on television saying he was hoping for an American victory, which is something you just don't say at a Ryder

Cup. Vice President Dan Quayle also came to the matches. It was undignified in many ways. We tried to maintain our composure in spite all this and deal with it as best we could." The following is from a 2004 article in the Guardian. As Gallagher suggested, the 1991 tournament swiftly became both an amusing and unpleasant insight into how America behaves with its back against the wall. It was like that world wrestling federation stuff on television where you have the bad guys

and the good guys said Gallagher. We were the bad guys. When the Americans apply themselves to winning something as seriously as they have the writer cut, you know you have to cope with a very ruthless animal. Another quote, it was the first time I remember the crowd getting so involved to such a degree. They booed when we hold putts and cheered when we missed. The whole atmosphere was very unfriendly and it got very political. And lastly, from Gallagher quote, American fans are naturally boisterous and jumpy and generally lack the sophistication

of the British fan except when Riled." I went back to look at highlights from the 1989 event at the Belphrey just to put Gallagher's claim to test. It does not hold up. Indeed, there are many clips of British fans cheering as American puts failed to fall. The pairings were set for Friday morning forims at the opening ceremonies the night before. Steve Payte's injury had thrown a giant wrench in the plans of Captain Stockton. Wayne Levy was playing poorly and Stockton was not

in any hurry to put him out there. Marco Mirr's back was acting up. Both Omyra and Payne declined to be paired with Hail Irwin, which Erklandi. He remarked, what whims? I told them he'll be on your team. What have you got to worry about? So I said, I'll take him shit, who wouldn't want to play with Hailer when?" End quote. The first matchout would be Paul Azinger and Chip Beck for Sevy Biasteros and Jose Maria Lothable. The Americans have had some great Ryder Cup players. We surely have and great champions, but I don't think there's ever been anybody that was as magnificent in a Ryder Cup as Sevy was. They were followed by Raymond Floyd and Fred Couples first Bernard Longer in Mark James. Lanny Watkins and Hill Irwin drew David Gilford and Colin Montgomery, and Payne Stewart and

Mark Calcivecchio went up against Nick Fowdo and Ian Wusnum. Here's Paul Broadhurst on how that day started. There's a first morning on the local Raid Edge station in in Charleston rang my room at 5.30 in the morning and announced that they were part of the anti-European ride-acup team and lettled it they realised that the first tee off is 7.30 so we were up at 5 every morning but yeah that was a little introduction to the ride-acup. You know there were things that happened called for the European team that shouldn't have happened by people in the middle of the radical. You know, there were things that happened. Calls for the European team. This shouldn't have happened by people in the middle of the night.

The crowds were out in full force on this Friday morning. Here's Lani Watkins on the atmosphere. And I think the venue attributed to that is well because it wasn't the kind of course it was easy to follow. So groups of people camped out in like on sand dunes. It'd be a whole, it'd be a thousand Europeans over here, and a thousand Americans over there, and they started yelling at each other.

So it was a lot of that going on. And it wasn't on one side. I mean, I always found it interesting that, you know, when we played over there, we can get booed and whatever. And I've been booed when I was introducing the first heat to Belfri. And we don't complain, I never complained about that. I always took it as a badge of honor, okay, but they come over here and play, and if it happens over here they're always very upset about it, even if they're winning, so I never quite got

that, so you know, it's just but then again they had Sevy involved, and with Sevy there was always an issue. The instigator antagonizer he was everything he had to be in the middle of everybody's business and there it is the very first match of the twenty ninth rider cup popped off by the time it hit the turn here's Corey paving the sevy Jose Paul chip match was the first morning and i was sitting out the first morning captain to octam just told us the night before is if there's any issue with rules is you know always talk to the official that's with the group. You know don't talk to the other players you know go through the official. And I remember Terri and Tv Han and and I saw Paul and Debbie yapping at each

other and going back and forth. I didn't know it was really going on at the time. One of the most well-known incidents from the 91 Ryder Cup was at rules controversy involving Paul Easinger and the King of Gamesmanship, Sevy. What the thing she did would probably take us off so much that we would get more upset at what was happening and you get more defensive on stuff. So there's no question. I mean, I think he was, if there had to be an antagonist going back

and all the ride of cups and when everything started, I think the arrow points, you know, directly at Sevy. And no one else. What Lanny said is correct. It was one of those things. I mean, different people do different things. And South Terrace just stopped to play with. He could get under your skin with little things he

might say something he might do on the golf course. He might challenge or situations as far as rules go just didn't quite know what you're going to get for. I think everybody in our team room would have the edges as you suggest or have which one would have be it probably

would have been said. Hail Irwin himself had previous run-ins with Sevy. I had had something with previous run-ins with Sevy. I had had something with Sevy many years ago. We were playing in the World Match play and went worth it. He was quite a young player just starting out in Europe with the new future of Europe. This is the year that Europe was experimenting with tapping down spike marks, which were defined as an uplifted tough to grasp. Well, these are 36 whole matches, and we're the first match out.

So there really are no tight marks, but that is heaven all over the place. And then I am, I'm really kind of wondering what this is all about. And so on the 18th, he only had his hand behind the ball in the rough. And this referee looked at me and he said, you could call that on him if you want to.

No, I want to beat him badly, of course. I wanted to let his bike mark is and he said, I thought so. So we went in at the 18 hole break and got a vanishing surface. Okay, here it is. Layed it all out and we get to a 16 hole hole and Savey's got a put from perhaps 15 feet for a birdie and a win on the hole and I'm too up at the time Any points to spike marker. I look at it. I said I don't know as the referee referee said no He missed the putt and went to the 17th D and hit it out of bounds and I I won that hole as well so technically I won three and one.

But at the press conference, she indicated to the press that I had gotten favorable treatment from the referee, which was a total joke, if that was not the case. And then when I asked about my two and one victory, I was pretty pin-up with a little emotion. I said, doing what I won the 17th hole at three and one, and you can print it. So those are the kind of things that we as players

ran into. They weren't necessarily directed at us first play as just the way he said he was. And another from Lanny Watkins. The second day at the bell in the morning, Marco Marin, I'll play in Sevy, and I think Manuel Pinero, going down the first hole, best ball. We get on the green, and I've got about a 20, 25 foot

of a birdie, Sevy's about 12 feet. His coin's in my line, I had him move it. I pulled my putt, it hit his coin, bounce right, it went in the hole. He was living. You had me do that on purpose, you had me move my coin so you can make that putt. I said yes, I got right in his face. I said yes, I mean that blanking good.

Don't forget it. And yet another one from landing. Tom Laman was going on first against him in Curtis Stranges and I both got Laman and we told him he's going to pull something. Go right back at him. Don't let him get the upper hand. It won't make sense what he's trying to do but just go right back after him. Don't let him get the upper hand. It won't make sense what are you trying to do but just go right back after him. He did on the 12th hole and layman went right back after him and layman beat him. When you talk about the confrontations between Sevy and Azinger, that went back a ways. Here's Paul Azinger to take us back to the origin of the scuffle, which took place at the 89 Ryder Cup at the Belfrey. Well, see, I draw Sevy

on Saturday night. And Curtis walks up to me and Well, see, I draw Sevy on Saturday night. And Curtis walks up to me and says, don't let him pull anything on you tomorrow. So my mindset shifts. So then we get to the first tee. And Curtis goes off last. And I'm off first. So there's a big gap between those tee times. And he comes walking up to me on the first tee.

Yeah, you're feeling good. So I'm pulling thing on you today. So back then, the golf balls were getting shredded by the square grooves. And we were both using square groove wedges. We hit irons off the second tee, three irons, both of us wedged into the green. He hit it about 12 feet. I hit it about four feet. We get up there and he takes his ball and tosses it to his caddy Ian and says, I take

his ball out of the play. I was like, Curtis popped in my head. That's okay. My ball was shredded. I had hair. I used to ping wedge back then and it really wrecked the golf ball. So you could pick my golf ball up by the paint thread that was hanging from it. I can't take it out of play though. I could rub that paint thing off of there, but I can't take the ball out. So anyway, I just thought he's pulling something right there. And so I looked at his caddy I asked I said I need to see

that ball and I looked at it and I walked over to Sevin he was already lined up as he squatted down and he just looked up at me like that and he's I said I don't think he can take this ball out I said look at mine it looks just as bad he goes to European rules as he's bought his no good I said well in the US you can have to play it I said maybe we, in the US, you're gonna have to play it. I said, maybe we should ask you official. So Annie McVeigh came in. I said, I'm sorry, Savvy, you have to play this ball. Well, the crowd was into it now,

and they were cheering me. Savvy line that put up from every direction. I looked at Savvy and I said, I'm sorry, my ball looks just as bad. And Savvy looked at me and he said, no, no, it's okay. If this is the way you want to play today, we can play this way. And I swear, bro, my hands are not shake when I play, but at that moment, I was starting to quiver. He made the 12 footer. And then as the crowd noise died down, some British guy

yelled out, what would you have done with the good balls, Savi? And I was thinking, man, I put my ball down. I was like this. I hit this putt that went in the hole and came right back at me and the crowd just yelled out. They cheered twice as loud as mine missed. And it was really a rough match after that. We went at it. But that wasn't all.

During that same match at the Bell Free, there was another showdown as Zinger went to take a drop. Before I dropped, I stood up and bumped into Sevie because I went to Nolraide where your model was. I mean, it was like that out there. And then he grabbed his ball and tried to place it all around. And thank God it didn't stay anywhere. And I had to set my name a little tough to grasp to get it to stay. And he's like, now you have a perfect lie. Which brings us to the opening match here in 91. And while the showdown on the 10th tee is well known, there's even more context that Zinger has to add.

See, I hate that it's remembered for ball compression incident, but that's what it's remembered for. And I got four of those golf balls brand new sitting in my room that I found in my old Ryder Cup back. But, you know, they took a bad drop on number two that the official let them get away. They broke the rule, basically. They hit a ball that they couldn't tell went in the hazard then they

played a provisional which is for a lost ball and then they went back and dropped like the ball like they knew the ball went in the hazard but they didn't know it was controversial but we won the hole and then the fourth hole savvy hooked it in the junk and the official yells out he says five minutes is up and then literally within 10 seconds, they found the ball and he let him play it. And I just was eight about that. And chippers like calm down. I said, no, man, he can't do it. So that was how that match started. The contentiousness continued. Azinger stood uncomfortably close to Sevy as he played

a ball from the rough, implying that he didn't trust the spaniard to play it as it lies. Sevy noted this in Spanish to Jose Maria, also noting, he's very worried I'm going to kick his ass in this match. Remember this is the first match out on the first day of the Ryder Cup. Very early in the mix, Team Europe trailed in all four matches. It was around this time that Captain Gallagher discovered that his radio was on an open channel, and that technically anyone could have been listening in on team Europe conversations. Bernard Gallagher was concerned that his conversations were being heard by the American Captain

Dave Stockton and obviously he couldn't hear anything that was going on in the US camp. But, again, I wasn't aware of that at the time of the event, but you know, you learn things as the years have gone by. Stockton scoffed at that, saying, hell, I can barely turn on the TV, let alone monkey with radio signals. But this would play a factor later on. Gallicor also noted that there were issues with the radios in 1987, saying the American radios worked perfectly, and the European ones were either not as strong or not as new and

certainly did not work. But now for the showdown. Then on 10T they accuse of using the wrong compression ball which we did. And it was totally my fault. But it was a 90 compression title versus 100 compression title. And we're on the first part five. Here's how it works. If the 100 compression title goes off number one,

the hundred compression tidaless has to go first off every odd hole the rest of the day. That 90 compression ball, which was red, if it goes off number two, it goes off every even hole the rest of the day. It was the par five seventh hole where Azinger and Beck violated this rule. If you hit my ball off the tee, you lay up, I get hit my ball into the green.

That's what it was. And they caught that, and that's illegal. But they didn't call it. It was on seven. Eight, we played normal, nine, we played normal. So they tried to call us on it, I guess, on 10-T. And we were two upper, three upper, something. It shook us up.

It was ugly. I always wondered how they could tell. How would they even know? I guess it was the color of the ball was different. No, just the logo. Just the wireless stamp and the number on the ball. How did they notice that? The fact that it's right.

They heard it's talking about it. Oh, okay. I was free and talk, we were talking about it. Like it was a great strat boy, aren't we smart? Right. But boy, we butcher it because if you hit a black ball off the first tee, it's got to be off every odd hole. What's so fascinating is that they just change the rule.

But the previous Ryder Cup, you could switch the balls up. I could switch on the tee and use a ball's ball, or he can use his ball into the green or vice versa. So for instance, we switched up the pocket, hit his ball into the green on the par-five, on third shot or something. And then, but we went into number nine, finished the hole, and we were like three up on the match. And then, said he called the official over and said, you know, that we had switched up our golf ball.

And Zinger took it as a slight, you being your columnist, heater. No, I'm ball. And Zinger took it as a slide. You mean you're calling me a cheater? No, I'm not calling you a cheater. You just change balls and you weren't supposed to do that. But anyway, Paul was really upset about it. And it took about 10 to 15 minutes to sort through what had actually happened. And in match play, you don't call it on the whole.

It doesn't matter. It doesn't mean a thing. It's like it didn't happen. But in Kurt Samson's book, he notes that there were two rules related announcements made to the players before the event. One, that the sand on the golf course was all to be played as a waste area. And two, this specific ruling related to the golf ball. Sevy brought this to Sam Torrance's attention on the eighth hole. But Gallagher had already turned off his radio upon finding out they were on an open channel and couldn't be reached, so the matter was not brought to the attention of a referee or

the Americans in a timely fashion. According to Azinger, the Europeans tried to take yet another bad drop on the ninth hole, and he called for a rules official. A furious Sevy finally barked at Azinger, asked him where he wanted him to drop it. The Europeans finished off a front 940 and headed to the back three down. Gallagher waited behind the ninth

and was up to speed on the situation regarding the golf ball switch the Americans had made. They tried to call a penalty on the 10th hole that they had, you know, this was the one ball rule was in effect and somehow they played a ball it wasn't the one they were supposed to play. So, Sevy thinks he waits and he's going to call like a four hole penalty on them on the 10th tee. Well, you can only call the one hole he just played. He didn't know the rule, but he tried to think, okay, well, they did it five holes ago. They've been doing it. I'm going to call five holes.

As you can tell, the accounts here vary depending on who you ask. Bernard Gallagher said, quote, Paul Azinger didn't help matters. He was such a volatile guy. I know Paul blames Sevy for using gamesmanship, but that's ridiculous. To be honest, Paul was the worst for that. He would try anything to win. That was certainly true when it transpired that Paul and ship back were switching balls. It was actually Jose who spotted what they were doing, not Sevy. That little bit of controversy made the Ryder switching balls. It was actually Jose who spotted what they were doing, not Sevy. That little bit of controversy made the Ryder Cup great. It made, actually, Americans really started to care about the Ryder Cup.

But you know, I never wanted to rub anybody's nose and anything either. And I just was trying to protect what we were doing. Here's Sevy's catty Billy Foster telling his side of the story. This audio comes from the golf TV Instagram. So once it came a pattern that there was going to be no penalty of Paul all of a sudden, he's up, Nezio went, This audio comes from the Golf TV Instagram. like. So as we're walking off the 10th to give Sevi a nose, not that he needed any nudging I said, I, I, as you said, nice try. I will. The blood went up through his eye of balls and started spewing out of his ears like he was absolutely fruffin at the mouth raging. While Jose Maria and Sevi were insistent that the Americans had violated the rule on 7,

8 and 9, the Americans claimed they only violated it on 7. A month later, at the Volvo Masters in Spain, Sevi had the following to say, quote, �Azinger didn't cheat, but he lied. He said the ball changed only happened once, but we know it happened three times. At first he denied it completely. Then when he realized they could not lose the whole, he changed his statement. He was the only one on the American team that did not behave in a proper manner. The American team were 11 nice guys and Paul Azinger.

Every thought I was such a prick at Ryder Cups, but you know, I just was patriotic and did what I had to do, but I had a heart. Like Zinger says, I take these things personally to it. I thought, I know you do it's good. Here's Captain Stockton's take on the situation. And it was totally our fault. I mean, A's here should not have played the situation. Vex shouldn't have played the different ball that they did.

Belfare should have called it on that hole and be done. They would have won that hole. Belfare's and Europeans would have won it. And then we had been on. But they'd gone three holes, so there's nothing that could happen. The situation was finally resolved when Gallic are weighed in and told the players to play on.

There would be no penalty, but the 1991 Ryder Cup got flipped on its head. The Zinger was so upset. I mean, you could see him was rising out of his ears and nostrils. It was like wow to sport. And I'll never forget it. He ran his first putt by probably four feet as one of these real tough looking cuts. The slope is right the left and the grain is to left the right. I had to get it inside the right side of that cut and hope it would stay in there. And it just rode by the edge and I thought, oh my gosh, I knew if I didn't make that putt it was going to change. Chipback's gut feeling was right. The Europeans found the fairway on the 12th and his Azinger took the club back, Sevy noticeably

coughed. Azinger backed off and shot an icy stare at the spandard. The Europeans would go on to win the whole. Sevy later noted, I often cough and sneeze because I have allergies, but Azinger looked at me as if I'd done it on purpose. He was kind of using it as a play to get himself going one way or another, whether you look at it as a good thing or a bad thing. It doesn't matter, but that's what he was trying to do, is to catch change the momentum of the match. And it seems to have worked because they ended up coming back, Sabi and Jose and winning

that match. Sabi was doing a little gamesmanship and it ended up working out for their favor. I mean Sevi made about a 40 footer on the 17th hole to win the match. It was like man it broke my heart, broke his heart too. But they performed miracles after that to beat us. Billy Foster said I was holding the pin when Sevi made a 40 footer on the 17th to finish the match. The message, don't fuck with the Spaniards.

Years later, Azinger would say, quote, the fact is, Sevi and Jose were better than Chip and I. That's all there is to it. Back then, I didn't like Sevi or Ali. I matured over the years and eventually that changed. Now I look back and it's a total pleasure to reflect on how good they were. They were as passionate about their homeland as we were about ours. And the rider cut maybe meant more to them than it meant to us. I've always said that Americans love for the rider cut

is in our heads, but for Europeans it's in their blood. There's a difference. The rider cut meant everything to them. Had the Europeans not flipped that match they would have been in a world of trouble. It would be the only point they would earn on Friday morning. Floyd and couples won two and one over Langer and James and Payne and Calcivecchiha won one up over Fowdo and Wusdom. Lanny and Irwin won four and two over David Gilford and Colin Montgomery. Here's Irwin.

Hey, Monty was a very difficult player. Remember, he played with a very formal game. Well, Lanny and I beat him, which I thought was really good. It's a good bell bringer for us. The wake-up calls, maybe we can beat the feet and play successfully against these guys. Azinger and Beck would not have to

wait long before they got another shot at Sevy and Ola Fahbel as they drew them that afternoon's forball. Here's Dave Stockton. I couldn't figure out how on the X there you know it's like Bernard Gallagher their captain's reading my mind about where I'm putting them because I was moving them around. I didn't want them to be against Ralph Cereau. Zanger and I we were ready to get our feet wet and go after those boys again because they were a tough match and they would do anything to win and we really liked that. I've never seen a person that gets so excited like Zanger

Good. You know, you think I knocked that driver off the ground and knock it right up is about a 10 foot opening in the bunker. You can do anything you want. I think that's a perfect call. Straight knock it right through there. You can just encourage him so much and ride him like a good, like a good stallion, you know, just pumping up. Steve Pate warmed up on Friday morning, but had determined he would be

unable to go in the afternoon. Lany Watkins was paired up with Marco Mira up against Sam Torrance and David Faraday. Corey Pavey and Mark Calcivecchio went up against Mark James and Stephen Richardson and Raymond Floyd and Fred

couples drew Nick Fowdo and Ian Wusdom. Floyd and Couples quickly put another point on the board for the U.S. and the lead was stretched to 4-1. Fowdo and Wusdom struggled with their putters all day and despite success in previous Ryder Cups, their O and 2 Friday would mean they would go separate ways the following day. But the Eros rallied that afternoon. James and Richardson trounced Paveon calcovechia 5 and 4 coach Stockton had to kind of you know do on the fly and we hadn't played much together and we're both

pre-nervous and we got beat Bernard Gallagher remarked quote still I was surprised when Cory paving appeared on the first tee wearing his battle fatigue hat I felt that was rude and unnecessary paving replied I explained that I was in support of the troops and that it was a coalition effort and that was all it was about. But people are going to take it the way they want. There was backlash and I continue to be asked about it to this day. David Farrity was off to a slow start in his first ratter cut match and hit one of golf's most embarrassing shots, the fat putt. His putt are scuffed to the turf before the ball and the ball rolled like a deflated

balloon, came up four feet wide and six feet short. And on the second tee, Torrance put his arm around the shoulders of the younger man. Fairety watched the lips beneath the mustache move. It was a tender moment. "'If you don't pull yourself together,' said Sam. I'm going to join them, and you can play all three of us. You useless bastard.'" Fast forwarding to the final green,

Farrity and Torrance trailed Omira and Watkins by one hole. Farrity lined up as 12 foot par putt and canned it, letting loose a giant fist pump as they eaked out a half. Chip back and Azinger trailed by one playing the difficult par 3 17th. Beck stepped up first. The win was, I've never seen a win so dense and so heavy.

It just moved that ball. And I think if you cut it a foot, it was going 30 yards right. Bernard Gallagher would say this about his team. I knew how tough it was to concentrate and had been proud of the way the team had gone about their business on the first day when it was clear the American players were whipping up the crowds. That encouragement of the fans to react vociferously would, I knew, get worse as the match progressed,

but I was sure we could cope. On Saturday morning, the team of Irwin and Watkins got back together and squared off against Faraday and Torrance. Calcovech and Stewart drew James and Richardson, Azinger went out with Omira and Drew Fowdo and Gilford, and in the last match, Ray Floyd and Fred Couples drew the Spaniards, Jose Maria and Sevy. Here's Stockton. in. Azinger went out with Omeera and Drew Fowdo and Gilford and in the last match Ray Floyd and Fred Couples drew the Spaniards. Jose Maria and Sevy. Here's Stockton.

The interesting thing is when Fowlster has got away and he got paired against Floyd on I think it was Saturday. I just walked up to him. I said, you know, Fowlster had a terrible time this week with his cough, this

is the Raymond Floyd. I said, you might want to ask him about it, you don't want to hear that cop today. And here's Fred Couples, relaying the story to David Faraday. Raymond and I played Jose and Sevy. And there was a little bit of noise made in the first T. There really was.

Oh, I believe you. And then we got to the second hole. And Steve Williams was counting for Raymond. And he's Steve told me to stay back. So Raymond and Sevy walked probably 30 yards ahead of me. I don't know where Jose was. And then when he came back, he said, we're all good, that'll never happen again.

And I said, you know, I'm like, what'd you say? What'd you say? And he said, I said to him, Sevy, you can keep doing what you're doing. But I'm way better at this than you'll ever be. So my suggestion would be to stop. That's what he told me. Yes. you can keep doing what you're doing, but I'm way better at this than you'll ever be. So my suggestion would be to stop. That's what he told me. Yes, so it's like, you know,

if you want to be a little game, it's been you can do it with chip back and you can do with a singer, but not with me. About Sarah said he caught one time. Here's Hale Irwin talking about his dynamic pairing with Lanny Watkins.

Well, anyone can send and I seem to have shared some success with the years and other writer-cut teams. He's an aggressive player. And I don't want to say I was the manager. I don't mean that at all. I was his team member. But I like to put Lani's aggressiveness out front,

not that I was boss, but because it's a team effort, I mean to sound this way. But I think Lani could use that aggressiveness knowing that there was someone like myself that was behind him, because I was probably more of a keeping in play kind of player. Don't take quite the risk for the chances or go at every flag the way Lanny might, but bear in mind Lanny is a major championship winner. He was a heck of a player. So, yeah, I think we just meshed very well on the golf course. Omira and Zinger took a herding to Fowldown, Gilford, a pairing that will be criticized. They won seven and six, which was the biggest route in rider cup history.

Floyd's intimidation tactics didn't work on the Spaniards and they lost that match three and two. Payne and Calc won their match one up when Stephen Richardson missed a four footer on the 18th. So we won both our matches. I remember one hole. I think it was on 13 on Saturday. And all I had to do, I had a 10 footer, paying hit it in their 10 feet, and they had already hit it in the water.

It made a bogey. So straight downhill punch, and it was super fast. And Paying comes over to me and says, this is quick, you don't have to hit this very hard. I said, yeah, I know parts, I got it. And as soon as I hit it, I crushed it. Anyway, I went right in the middle of the hole. If it didn't hit the hole, it was going 10 feet by at least.

And pain just pulled this can go, hogan head over his eyes and just shook his head. He never said, good pod or anything. And then just turned around and started walking off the back of the green. And I had to walk back to the next T to T off. And he can say a word to me for two old and the US took a big lead into the afternoon seven and a half to four and a half. If the fervor of the 1991 Ryder Cup was not yet

evident to the viewers at home, it soon would be on Saturday afternoon. President George Bush came onto the screen to introduce the live coverage by saying, Good afternoon, it's a pleasure to tee off this biennial golf classic, the world famous Ryder Cup. As every weekend golfer with a hard slice knows, the Ryder Cup brings together the best golfers in the United States and Europe. The battle for the Cup made this tournament one of golf's most competitive contests. By bringing together nations and people in friendly competition, the Ryder Cup reflects the finest tradition in sports. And while only one team can claim victory,

I'll show my patriotic colors for a moment by hoping that the American team brings the Cup back to where it belongs right here in the United States. Thank you and let the round begin. And the NBC monologue was as follows. How did it happen that a friendly golf match has come to this? How did the spirit of innocence and fraternity turn into rampant nationalism and frenzy? When did the metaphors begin to sound more like football and boxing?

Indeed, did someone so conservative as Jack Nicholson actually say that this weekend would be a war? When there is more at stake for a professional golfer than merely playing for a sponsor's money, when the stakes are team and country, then maybe Jack Nicholson's right. Maybe this is a war on Kiyowa Island. But not a war that we can see, because the battle in golf is always internal. The struggle to silence one's body and senses to quiet one's breath and mind. The afternoon forboles session would bring a lineup change, and yes, that is Steve

Payte's music. After a warm up on the range, he decided to give it a go, stocked him paired him with Corey Pave and just like he had envisioned. The Langer Montgomery pairing was also a new one and started on a bizarre note, the following is from Bernard Gallagher's book. Langer walked to his partner's side and asked, how far is this? 126 to the front edge plus 24 yards to the pin, Colin replied, looking at his pin sheet. In other words, 150. Monty felt pleased to be able to give a precise teammate an exact number. Where have you taken the yardage from? Monty pointed at the sprinkler head. Are we talking about the back of the sprinkler head or the front? After a moment of confusion,

the circular plastic irrigation cover was only 9 inches in diameter. Monti realized that Bernard was not joking. Moments after Colin hit his iron into the green, Mr. German engineering announced the new rules of the road. Hence fourth only yardage provided by his caddy would be used. Colin and his caddy, Kevin Laffey, would have to consult Pete Coleman for practically every shot. That arrangement made them nervous. Paid and Paven played spotty and lost their match on the 17th hole. Paul Broadhurst finally got the call that afternoon and paired up with world number one Ian Wusdom. He surprisingly carried that pairing to a victory over a gaspall, Azinger and Hale Erwin. Yeah, it'd been very difficult for me to just go in and play the singles. So he'd gotta fit me in somewhere. I was fairly pally with Ian Woosner through a few other guys on tour, DJ Russel and Peter

Baker and Martin Pox and the sort of five of us sort of got on really well on tour. So I knew Wooszy reasonably well. There was no talk at the start of the week, I hadn't practiced with Ian Woosner or anything. It was just I think a scenario where I needed to play with someone. And obviously I was I was chuffed to bits playing with Ian Wo were anything. It was just, I think, a scenario where I needed to play with someone. And obviously, I was chuffed to be playing with Lee and Wiesner. He was just one of the masters. He was World No. 1. Reports swirled earlier in the week that Wayne Levy had not broken 80 in any of the practice

rounds. But fatigue was a genuine concern on the American side. And Levy finally came off the bench for the Americans and contributed almost nothing. He didn't make a birdie all day long and didn't help his teammate Lanny Watkins until the 15th hole. Lanny remarked that Stockton's only mistake was not pairing Pate and Levy together, and noted they sacrificed two points by not putting them together. Sevy and Olethabo went back out for a fourth time, this time against Couples and Stewart.

The Spanish pair continued their gamesmanship. With Sevy and Tite for a birdie on the 7th Oleththable hit a surprising skull from the sand over the gallery completely. He took his time locating his ball, then took more time to appeal to replace the ball. Even if he had hold that fourth shot, that would only have tied Sevi, who was 18 inches away from the hole. There was no reason to go through this if not to annoy Fred Couples, who was looking at an eagle putt from just off the green. Jose Maria was still away before playing his fifth, but Sevy played first and made his

birdie. A bizarre sequence of events. Couples then drained the eagle putt and let loose a vicious fist pump. Couples would also go into a whole-a-parch hip from the sand on the 15th, toss his club emphatically on the ground, then turn to the crowd with both fists raised in the air, pumping them skyward almost as if he was raising the roof. His wife then ran out onto the green to hug him from behind. He quickly dismissed her.

The match went all the way to the 18th. NBC ran an hour and 15 minutes long and went commercial free. Bernard Gallagher noted, winning the 18th would be nice because it would complete the white wash. Something said he was well aware of despite the fact that scoreboards were few and far between and well below the standard of on course information we set over here. With

the match tied, Olethovel stared at a six footer as darkness descended on the island. The ball was barely halfway there before Jose Maria fist pumped and walked it in. Oli had to make a six foot putt to have the 18th hole on Saturday to send the matches into Sunday tight. And he made that putt and then Sevy, you know, comes over and shakes his hand, you know, this big firm handshake, and the sun was setting or had even set behind them. And the sky was completely orange. And I got a picture and a lot of people got a picture

of these two guys, these two spaniards shaking hands, in complete and utter silhouette against the sky. And of course, their faces, because of the contour of their faces and their noses and stuff, they're so totally recognizable. It couldn't be any other two people in the whole world. After two days, the 29th Ryder Cup was dead even. But for the most part, it was a bit of a pain here at Jab there,

a while roundhouse at best, and then you've got to get your clinches and you come away and you say, okay, it's a draw. The third day was going to really set up who was going to be the winner. The first two days of the Ryder Cup are extremely long days. They start it dawn, and they end it dusk, separated by a point. It's absolutely nothing. But what you do have in those first two days are all the truly exhilarating team aspects of the event.

Those two days are rarely determinative of what happens in the end, but those two days are everything that the writer of Cup is all about. The order in which captains send out their players for Sunday singles is often easy fodder for media types. The consensus has always been that you want to start strong and finish strong and perhaps do your best to hide your lesser players in the middle. Get some momentum on the board early and have some anchors you can count on near the end. Well, it was pretty simple. Originally, I would have had Calc-11 and I would have had Lanny Watkins 2, but Lanny was tired and Lanny wanted to go late, which surprised me because I was going to, I would tend to put

faster people out front and let them go and I attended the pair of the way most American captains have and that's to put your're three best three of your best players up front and three of your best players from finishing up and you kind of protect the guys in the middle. Gallagher bucked this trend hard. What I'm expecting is for Maine Stewart to walk all over somebody I've never hardly met David Verity, Floyd the beat whoever he's playing and Calcule, Calcule, do the same he has in Gumri I believe, but that's what I did. Their captain clearly flipped, he put the weakest one first and last, not necessarily last

he had longer against Erwin, but he put most of his emphasis center opposite to me. He put his strength in the middle, not not on the beginning of the end. He sent out Nick Fowdo first who was not playing well and had been O and three in team play. He drew Raymond Floyd from the U.S. side. Fowdo noted it was the most nervous I had ever been. I had trouble getting off to sleep and I was pacing around the room at 4 a.m. with my heart going flat out. I thought I was going to have a heart attack." Fowdo was followed by David Farrity and Colin Montgomery, two rookies. Farrity drew painstooler and Montijou marked Calcavecchio. You know, I was excited. I asked Captain Stockton to put me out first just because I'm

antsy and I don't like sitting around and you know, I just I'm ready to get after it and I'm a fast player. So I wanted to just get right out of the block and get on with it. Gallagher then buried his spaniards in the middle with all the thobble going out fourth and sevy seventh, but the USA's Paul Azinger also went out fourth, drawing Jose Maria yet again. Steve Pate was out seventh drawing Sevy, which looked like an easy point for the Europeans. And it got worse on the US side.

Azinger, painstead and chipback all got hit with food poisoning. Sunday morning on the range, Steve Payte warned up. Brett Fisher, the physiotherapist on the US side, stood by with Captain Stockton as well. It was not going well. Despite playing in the Saturday afternoon session, he was in no condition to go on Sunday. And then I pushed the podium out of the match,

but I'm funny. Couldn't go. A little known responsibility of a Ryder Cup captain is to set a might, a man in the envelope. This would be the player that would have to sit if a player on the opposing team were to be unable to play. For Europe, that man would be David Gilford. Bernard Gallagher, again, to Golf Digest. What was odd was that Steve Pate had already played since the

accident. Of course, had Pate not done so and then pulled out of the singles, we would have been awarded a full point. Because Steve was injured before the opening ceremony, they would have had time to replace him with a reserve. I don't want to sound too cynical, but if Steve was fit enough to play on the Saturday, why could he not do the same on Sunday? What upset me most though was that I heard nothing from the US officials. The first I knew of the problem was at breakfast on the Sunday morning. I was not impressed. I'm going to read a few more quotes from the Golf Digest 2012 piece.

Steve Payte said, I was a no-go for Friday but felt a little better on Saturday. I went along okay for a while, but I stepped along the side slope of a hollow and that made the injury worse. I knew when I woke up on, but I stepped along the side slope of a hollow and that made the injury worse. I knew when I woke up on Sunday morning I couldn't play. But Gallagher said, in my opinion, it was all a bit overblown. He was fit enough to play. It was unprecedented for the captain of the player who's not injured, not to at least have the courtesy to tell the other captain that this is going to happen. Al Mellon, who is Steve Payt's caddy, says,

on Sunday Steve gave it a go, but he couldn't hit the ball 60 yards. He was devastated. He was lined up to play Sevy, which is exactly what he wanted. Gallagher again, he didn't have the courtesy to allow me to prepare David Gilford. And that's what really annoyed me about Stockton.

Not the players wearing camouflage hats and it being called the war on the shore after the Gulf War and whipping up the fans and all that. David Gilford said, �Pate was drawn to play Sevi our best player at the time, so chances were we would win that match. I was drawn against Wayne Levy, who was having trouble hitting his hat that week, so I'm confident I could have beaten him.

By a Starros, scheduled to go out seventh, moved up in the order to play Levy, who lost his only two matches that week and was the only American who failed to score a point. I think from the European point of view, I mean we were aware that Steve Pate had played on the Saturday afternoon and was carrying an injury. And I guess we thought Sevy would probably beat Steve and Wayne Levy, you know, with all due respect, was playing pretty poorly. Dave Gilford, I'm not sure how many points he'd won or whether it even won any points, but he was playing well and we expect, that's another game we expected to win in the singers. So to go from possibly two nothing to one and a half, half point, that was

a big difference and the way the match finished it would have made a big difference obviously. So that was the European point of view that you know we've perhaps been denied the chance of winning two points and that to settle for one and a half. Pates Cady Almelon notes Steve still has problems with his hips from that car wreck. I've worked for him since 1985 and although he's had his moments that thing had a huge impact on his career. David Gilford said Mark Calcovecchi came up to me just before the closing ceremony and said, I'm sorry about today, a few of our guys don't like what happened, which was nice of him. Look, I know Steve Pate had been in an accident and he had bruising, but he did play on the Saturday,

and to say that he was appreciably worse on the Sunday would be a very charitable interpretation of Dave Stockton's captaincy. At best, it was ungentlemently and unsportsman-like. At worst it was cheating. Sam Torrance noted in a 2010 Ryder Cup memoir, to this day I wonder how hurt Pate actually was. I was in one of the cars that bashed into each other, and it wasn't much of a concertina effect at all. In the second round of the four balls, he hit a driver and a five-iron to get on in two at the par-5-11th. I couldn't get near it in two.

To add to our feelings of two at the par-5-11th. I couldn't get near it into. To add to our feelings of doubt about the whole thing, it soon emerged that Paid had been drawn to play against Sevy, and then Sevy found himself against America's weakest player. That was not a good result for us because it was a waste of Sevy's point. I reckon anyone on our team could have beaten Levy. We felt it was the Americans who got a half point out of the affair. Recalling September 1991 in September of 2011, Pete shook his head rooffully. It wasn't much of a decision. I couldn't hit a ball more than 40 yards

in the air that morning. End quote. He didn't tee it up in another competitive event for six weeks. I don't know. I think Steve would have insisted on playing if he was fit enough to be honest. I know he played Saturday afternoon.

And I honestly can't remember how well he played that enough to be honest. I know he played Saturday afternoon and I honestly can't remember how well he played that on the Saturday afternoon but you know I'm pretty sure Steve wouldn't have just stepped aside and you know I'm sure he'd have wanted to play if he possibly could have done. Personally I would have you know died to have played you know I would have been pressing the captain to allow me to play even if the captain had said you know, died to have played, you know, I would have been pressing the captain to allow me to play even if the captain had said, you know, we want you to take a bit of a dive, you know, you've got an injury, we can get away with half a point. But I obviously, I can't speak for Steve, but I would expect him to have wanted to have

played anyway. Following Azinger in the five spot was Corey Pavan, who went up against Stephen Richardson. My nerves were fraveled from the dead go. You know, I was very nervous, but I was also very focused on what I was doing. So it's a unique situation where you're so nervous, but it also helps you concentrate. The sixth match was the aforementioned Sevy vs. Wayne Levy mismatch. Chip Beck was out seventh against the number one player in the world, Ian Wusnum. Marco Mira drew Paul Broadhurst.

Fred Couples got Sam Torrance. Lanny Watkins against Mark James. And finally, Hale Irwin against Bernhard Longer. They saw him set, and Hale, we want you to bring the ship home. Hale said, I would consider it an honor. And I thought, man, this guy is one tough, I'm great. I loved it when he said that. I would consider it an honor. And I thought, man, this guy is one tough on break. I loved it when he said that.

I would consider it an honor. In the first match, Nick Fowlto disposed of Raymond Floyd to up. Fowlto's first point at the 91 Ryder Cup. This was one of only three matches to reach the 18th hole on that Sunday. Keep that one stored away for later. In the second match, David Farrity beat Pain Stewart 2-1.

Here's Farrity telling the story about what happened between 16 Green and 17 Tea. He said, The noise at Kioa was unbelievable. It was desert storm. It was Corey Paveon running out from behind a sand hill like Rommel with his horrible little knotted fist. The crowd was swept up into a frenzy, and I'm trying to get to the 17th when all of a sudden a huge lady, Marshall,

gets in front of me and pokes me right here and says, where do you think you're going? What am I, a heavily disguised spectator? I'm wearing Cere's pants for Christ's sake. I'm in a Ryder Cup uniform. I'm on my way to lose my mind. An arm comes across my shoulder and pain put his face right here on mine.

I can still smell the red man. And I could tell that he was grinning like a bucket of french fries. He says, ma'am, I'd love for you to hold him here, but he's playing against me. And he swept me up onto the tee in his arms like that. Pain really got the rider cup. Understood what it was all about. In the third match, Mark Calcivecchi had got out and ran against Colin Montgomery.

Played fantastic on the front nine. I was probably shot four or five under, roughly four under, and I think he was one over. I was probably shot four or five under, roughly four under. And I think he was one over. So I mean, I'm five up at the turn. And everything is looking great. I hit him on the 10th grain and two, far forward.

He buried it in the front left bunker. The old don't look ahead strategy did me in there. I'm thinking, I'm going six up here. No problem. And of course, he holds it. It was around this time that Kiwa began bucking its head. One of the things that stuck out to me the most in talking with these players almost 30 years later

is how distinctly they remember the win. And a constant theme was its direction in the home stretch. The whole six-through 13 on that course are all pretty much the same direction. And the wind was downwind right to left, which is a fader of the ball, my favorite wind because I can hit a little fade into the wind and it'll fly a dead straight. Anyway, so now we get the 14, switch dead back into the wind, straight in and quartering left to right, which is my least favorite wind as a fader.

They turned back for Hallm after the 13th green and they have the par 3-14th with bogies. That hole was planned so hard it was ridiculous. So I'm still 4-up knowing the 15th. The 15th is a demanding t-shot with the ocean on the right and the wind into and off the left. 15 I basically hit my t-shot in the ocean so that's the end of that hole. He is 4-up with 4-to-go. He is four up with four to go. And he leaves it to the left side. So Calcabecchio well in command of his match with Colin Montgomery. Calcabecchio said I'm going to get rid of all my bad shots on one hole. Monte won the 15th hole with double to Calc's triple.

Calc is three up with three to play, needing just one half to put a full point on the board for the US. The 16th is a par five. 16, I played great. I hit it right over the flag with a little punch six iron for my third shot and it ended up in the sand dunes just behind the green.

I mean, I was literally only 25 feet in the hole, but it had no chance to get that up and down. A Bogey six to Monty's par, now two up with two to play, heading to one of the hardest golf holes in the world. Monti steps up with the honor. And back at 17, Montgomery off of the tee. Oh, and he is found to water re-gray.

I would say that Mr. Calcabecchiin needs to aim left a little. Way left, just make sure he is stay out of the water. Yeah, I was actually feeling fine even though I bugged 14 and hit a terrible drive on 15. But I actually played 16 pretty good. Now I was still, of course, two up with two to go. And then Mathi hit it in the water. Then I got nervous because then my thought process changed. All I'm trying to do is just I said just don't worry about hitting the green just get it over the left of the water somewhere left at the green and you know buggy should be able to win the

hole. That's when I made a really bad swing and tried to try to hit a two-iron as low and as left as I could. I came to the end back to 17 in Mark Calakovecchio, who is two up with two to go, his opponents in the water. Are you kidding me? That might have been the strangest shot I've ever seen right there. And I got so far ahead of it, people think I top that are top-ranked, it was just a smother. I de-loved the club so bad trying to hit it so low that it literally never got in the air. Watch this shot.

Teet up. It's teet up. The ball just never got off the ground. It just had about two seconds hang time. Gary Van Sickle notes that the European reaction in the press room was quote outright cheering. It was stunning. They let out a huge yell when Calc hit it in the water. The shot at 17 was the other one I think just you know

probably wrecked him that quality shot. It makes the almost a shame. Things are starting to move very quickly. We went over to the other teams that I didn't even know existed for the drop. I had no idea how far it was and I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, Mati hit first and hit him on the green and I guess by the flight of his shot that he hit a seven iron from like 120 yards. Now we're just dead straight into the wind. So I hit a seven iron hit him on the green. But Mati had hit six iron and his caddy Kevin Lafay quickly covered up the club with a towel as he put it back in the bag. So Cal couldn't see it. Calcutte guest wrong and his seven iron was actually 30 feet short of the flag. Calcutte guest wrong and his seven iron was actually 30 feet short of the flag. We'll see if this putt holds true everybody's been blowing it right by the hole and see if Calcutte Becky can lag it up there. It looks like he does have the right pace though. That's a good putt.

Monti, in with double bogey, took off his glove and handed his caddy his coin as Calcutte lined up his two foot putt for double bogey to win the match. He p up there tapping. I give it to him and I put it up to see and of course I had to put it. That's when I got super duper nervous. Calcadec now is about a two foot putt close to being a gimme

he's going to let him put it for the match. Straight downhill putt. But I'm telling you normally these putts you sort of hit them in a walk, but right now there's a lot of different thoughts that go through your mind. The only thing you do is get over it, hit it solidly, and think of a good one you made similar to this in another similar type of situation. For the first point, the singles match in the United States.

This is no give me right here under pressure. I mean, I'm shocked. Ooh, that match continues. We move to the 18. Calcavaccio struggling with his game and struggling with the pressure and struggling with the golf ball. The 18th remains back in mind. Bottom line of that hole was I had a two footer that normally would have been given any

other point in the match, but of course he made me put it, which I expected and I missed it. That's what bothered me the most about that whole match. That was just up golf course to Calcabecchi. I don't know how in the world you could have described it any other way. It gets high cut. Yeah, I don't think he's hit a straight ball cut, you know. So then 18 and Raymond Floyd was trying to pump me up and I hit a beautiful free iron right at the flag.

And of course, they went just over the back of the green, couldn't get that up and down. So we ended up having the match and I didn't handle it very well. Right after that, I was pretty shaken out and I was worried that that finishing mine was going to cost us the Ryder Cup and it was just too much from a handle at the time. Understandably so. The difficulty of Kiwa added to incomparable nerves in front of a national TV audience with teammates in a country counting on them. I can't imagine a more uninvable position to be in. I just grabbed my wife. Now my ex

wife of course and you know, we just went out in the beach and I had a like bald my eyes out for about 10 minutes. He and regrouped. And I knew I needed to get back back out of the course and and chair my teammates on. Roger Maldi wanted to interview me and I was in no mood for it and Peter Costas was

there who was my teacher at the time and he just said, you know, Roger leaving along. Here's Jim Moriarty again. That writer cup was Malfe's first go as being a TV guy. The last time I talked to Roger about this, you know, he said, you know, people now, players now don't really think of me as being a player, you know, he said, but then he was still playing some and everybody knew that he was a player and he felt that he himself was a player and not a broadcaster. And so at the end after that match was over, they sent Roger to go find Calcivecchi to

talk to him. And so he did, and so he and Peter Costas were inside the US trailer. Maltese said that Calcavacchi was just in no condition to talk. He told me, he said, I don't know what a nervous breakdown looks like, but he said, if it wasn't a nervous breakdown, that he was right on the cusp of one, that he had all the stress that he could stand. His eyes were swollen shut, that he'd been crying and that he'd been physically ill.

And the director was saying, talk to him. And Roger said, no, I'm not going to talk to him. And the director said, well, just stick around, he'll talk. And Roger said, well, look, he said somebody made, he may talk to somebody, somebody's going to talk to him, but it's not going to be me. Find somebody else to do it. He said a month and a half later they offer me a job. Calc had openly wept on the beach and even waited out into the ocean with his shoes still

on. He's down three and Floyd's down some more. Here's Calc three up and on the 18, he goes four up through nine and everybody behind him, the 9 is the 8 players playing, we have 1 not playing obviously, but the 8 behind him, they're ignoring the first 2 guys are getting beat, but they're saying look at Cal3 going, Cal3 is 10 now to take Cal3 up by 5, so if Cal3 can do it I can do a captain, I'm going this is really weird because they're ignoring, they were getting beaten to matches and we started outside.

And they're only talking about one match, but they were all figuring out that if Calc and do it, I can do it. And by the time Calc lost the last five holes, they end up even. And I've talked to him many times about it. I said, you're the one that won this for us. I really feel like this is American team victory, but in all

retrospect, if you, if you'd made 18 tied, 18 holes in a row, we would have lost this thing. So it was tough on him. I can still see in the class the painstored, painstored, took him knees out there walking on the beach with him. He was inconsolable as you could get practically. In the end, you're trying to get a team victory and I think he understands where I was coming from because we needed somebody to step forward. Somebody to show us what to do, yes, he didn't finish the way he wanted to, but he got us through a rough patch. Forget about it. You've got to have a point. We won 14, half-thirt without your half-point,

we don't win So it was you know, we tried to put it in that perspective and I think we did it I said did he enjoy the party that I think yeah, I think he was okay as it went forward He probably took him a while to get over it But it ended up not being as big a deal as it felt to him at the time because we did win Anyway, so we went back out and watched and of course that was still nerve-wracking And I'm still kind of in a half a State of shock and then pain found me for the last few holes

You know, you had his armor on me the whole time because you know you played great this week You know you were the one of the reasons why we got off the such a good start today because we saw you were 2 up 3 up 4 up 5 up, you know And it just fired to rest of team up and blah blah blah. I tell you what helped a lot too when I got to San Antonio and throughout the course of that week, you know, every single player gave me a high five. It's a great plan. You're one of the reasons we won. Oh, blah, blah, blah.

Nobody said anything negative towards me. I must have got a thousand fan letters in my locker that I opened up every single one of them. I'm ready. And every single one of them was positive in that same way, you know, saying, you're, you know, you got two and a half points here. You were one of the most valuable players in the team and the reason we won. So it was just nice to read all that.

And it actually meant a lot. Kyowa and the conditions had combined to wreak havoc on the nerves of many of the competitors. Some of the holes that were one with bogeys or sometimes worse, that usually doesn't happen. You generally see a lot of great opener right. It comes because you have 24-th best players in the world competing. Aysiger got Jose Maria Olethable for the third time in three days, and they did not exchange a single word on this Sunday. Only four holes were have between the two of

them and no one ever led by more than one up. The lead changed hands 13 times in total. It ended with Azinger collecting the point as Jose Maria missed a short putt on the last. Azinger would later say, I don't recall saying a word to Olafabal during my singles match with him. I will flat out tell you I feared him. I knew I could not afford to not give that match my complete attention or I'd get beat. To this day, he is the greatest iron player I've ever seen. Gallagher noted quote, maybe if they met half a dozen times, said one European supporter in the crowd, Paul would win once." Steve Pate was out on the course following his UCLA Bruin partner, Corey Pavein. After going O&2 and team play, Pavan played well and brought plenty of energy to the crowd in the middle of the pack. You know, by the time I got to singles, you know, I was extremely hungry to help the team in any way I could.

Captain Gallagher would describe it as, quote, hugely demonstrative. His behavior on the final day bordered on the bizarre as he whipped up gallery support by exaggerating every reaction to almost laughing point. Here's Stockton on the 17th tee with Pavan. Picture that I'm sitting on the 17th tee. I watched Calcivec here and flowed there and then he goes on to lose 18, three ends up tied and get the half point. I had Cory Pavan come up on 17 and he's standing there with two arms. Just that and I walked up and stood between him and his bag. He said, what's that tap? I said, what are you considering?

What are you it's thinking of it? He said, well, two iron, what do you think? And I said, what else do you think? He said, well, how about a four wood? I said, how about a three wood? So I hit three wood and just pulled it, which is fine, because it was not in the water. And it ended up plugging in the, I guess,

the bunker technically there was no bunkers on the course, but it was in the sand and it was plugged on the upslope. And Steven had a really good shot on the back of the green. And I hit a bunker shot that I'll always remember at a great bunker shot, trickled down to the hole, 40, 50 feet, and I ran after it, trickled down to the hole, you know, 40-50 feet and I ran after it and basically caught up to the ball before it stopped rolling by the hole and ended up, you know, making the putt for par and it was about a two-three footer and we have the hole and I won the match.

So I was extremely happy to get a point on the board. The matches were extremely close. was extremely happy to get a point on the board. The matches were extremely close. Every point, every half point mattered. Extremely close is an understatement. We are now tied 11 to 11. Sevy easily dispatched of Wayne Levy, though the match did make it all the way to the 16th hole. Of course, it was not without Sevy's usual fanfare.

On the ninth, Levy chipped up to within three feet. When it was not conceded, he said he would go ahead and finish. Sevy denied that and even called in an official to confirm that it was within Sevy's rights to tell Levy that he had to wait. Sevy drained his birdie putt to win the hole. Europe 12, USA 11. One of many Europeans to speak out about the crowd issues was Ian Wusnom, who said that, quote, Americans can't drink beer, which was one factor in what went on. They shouldn't be allowed to buy it at Rydercups." Maybe Ian had some perspective on this.

As Wayne Levy noted to Gough digest, I was amazed at how much drinking the Europeans did after they played. And I imagine before they played, there were these kids who service the team trailers who brought us drinks and stuff. They serviced the European trailer too, and they told us they couldn't believe how much they were drinking. And their players would visit the tents where a lot of European fans were and there were all kinds of chanting, singing songs and dancing. I thought it was pretty neat really, but I couldn't believe they could drink that much and still play. Woosam drew chip back in his singles match. I thought man, this guy's been drinking like a fish every night.

How in the world is this guy gonna beat me? I'm in the best shape of my life. Leading two up on the diabolical 17th, here's Beck. Great memory too, because I remember going from the 16th green to the 17th tee and painstures hit me on my shoulder so hard. Come on, Jeffy, yellin' at me. I just think I'll break my shoulder, slow it down a, Jeffy's yelling at me. I just, you gonna break my shoulder,

slow it down a little bit, things, come on. And I get to the tee in my Saturday day of losers this chip. You just laid up with your tree wood, you hit it 210 yards. You have 209 to the flag, it's a three wood. And I grabbed that three wood. I said, man, Dave, you're the greatest of all time. And I grabbed that three wood, put it right right over the flag about 15 feet from the flag.

I mean, it would ever think the wind could be blowing that hard, but my caddy was forward thinking enough that he stepped off how far I laid up with my three, but on the previous hole. I mean, that's impressive, isn't it? Beck would ease his putt with an inches of the hole and would close out the number one player in the world, 3 and 1. And but I can tell you right now I hold it out of the bar, I hold it out of

the fairway. I did all I could do to barely beat this guy. USA 12, Europe 12. You know, the number one player in the world. That was a great day for me. And I think it was definitely was a key back that day because they thought I was going to lose for sure. Here's Paul Broadhurst. I just remember it was a really tough tough day. It was blowing 25, 30 miles an hour. So

parts were really good. And I just remember playing really solid early on and making six straight parts. And I mean I won three of the holes. That got me three of after six. And I managed to keep that all the way around really. I think Mark got me back to two on a couple of occasions. I mean, the score in that day in the singles was really pretty poor. I know I looked at some stats a few years ago, and I know Sevy, I think, was the only player

around level par. I think I was one over, I know one more match. I was one over after 16. We didn't actually complete 17, but I mean some of the scooms really poor. But the conditions, I mean, it plays so difficult that day. Interestingly there, Paul mentions how they didn't finish the 17th hole. Marco Mera hit his tee shot into the water on 17 and had no idea that Paul's ball off the green had ended in such a bad lie that it would have been easy for him to skim one into the water.

Omira put his third into the pond and waved his arms in surrender. Gallagher encouraged Paul to go shake his hand as quickly as possible and said, frankly, I was amazed no American had checked Paul's lie. Europe 13, USA 12. There was not much drama to report in the Torrance couples match as Fred won easily 3-2. We're tied again at 13. Lanny Watkins beat Mark James 3-2 and tears filled Lanny's eyes as he told the international audience I don't know if I've ever worked harder.

Kurt Sampson writes, After all this, six days on the wild, charming island, 27 matches in limo crash, indignation, brilliance, abject failure, chanting, seafood, psych out and soccer songs, the result was still in doubt. If Hail won or halved, the United States won. If Hail lost, the match would be tied and Europe would retain the cup. The tension was unparalleled by any other event in golf. I remember on the Sunday afternoon or Sunday was pretty difficult because the wind was blowing. I'm getting 20 to 30 miles an hour maybe more. And the greens are very close. Some of them were high elevated green so you couldn't bounce the ball in there or run it up. You had to put the ball up in the air and that's always difficult when the wind blows.

There were enough scoreboards out there, and enough pattern amongst the gallery, and you see your captain periodically. But I tried to stay totally focused on my match, because Bernhard was a heck of a player, and I knew that I had my hands focused. I was not playing great myself. I was managing what I had quite well, because I was not playing great myself. I was managing

what I had quite well, but I wasn't hitting Austin, Dawson, the golf course just played hard. And even if you were playing well, it was still hard. So I was just trying to take care of business a few weeks. So I did do a lot of looking around because matches are not won or lost on the front line. they're won or lost on the back night. I just remember thinking, oh my gosh, we're coming down to the last hole of the last group. I can't even imagine how how and Bernhard were feeling. I mean that's so much pressure on individuals. You could see the pressure on on Irwin and in the meantime, I picked her, I said, anybody that's one three US open, got to have nerves of steel

and have to be able to handle anything thrown at them. And longer, I was amazed that he was picked to be in the last spot. He's not a good putter, particularly. As conditions ramped up, the match was going as planned for the 46 year old hail Irwin. If you want to call it my plan, the way the opening holds kind of went out there

four or five holes that went out. And then you came back on the front line and you went, you kept in the same direction on the back line initially. So I thought, I've got to hold my own on the outgoing hole into the win and get up on the downwind hole because that's where my game was suffering going into the win and get up on the downwind hole because that's where my game was suffering going into the win. I was not hitting them all real falling, hitting kind of weak shots, but downwind I could manage that. And that's what happened. I played him straight up going out. I got two up going down. I once it made the

turn going back to the clubhouse, then it became I think more favorable for him. I'll tell you one of the greatest people I learned earned so much respect for with Hail Irwin because Hail Irwin, I remember the last night. I don't know if you remember this at all, but Hail Irwin was, he was in his 40 and literally I think every player on the team could hit it 40 by it and I'm thinking to myself, here's a golf course. It makes the turn towards the clubhouse, the wind blowing left the right. And if you can't hit a draw, a low draw,

the closed club space, like a calcovete, you couldn't get it on the ground on 17. You never hit, it never hit earth. You always hit the ocean over there. And it worked against every weakness of Hail Irwin. And I would hate to have been able to finish that thing off. And I mean, even Langer hit four in on the last soul. Hail Irwin didn't three wood.

So it's a real tough test for a guy like Hail coming in. So Hail knew he had to get up on that on Langer that last day before he made that turn to the club out. By the time they began that stretch back toward the clubhouse, it had become clear what was at stake. I finally asked Dave, oh, I guess we had three or four holes to go.

I said Dave, we're always because I'm counting all the team members and everybody's here. He gave me the score and that it was obvious that the winner of this match is going to win the Ryder Cup. I think I realized it was four that the winner of this match is going to win the rider cup. I think I realized it was four holes to go. I was keeping an eye on the leaderboard and kind of looked close all the time and then as it turned out I recall that I was on the 15th

hole and I looked over there and I saw that actually all the matches were done. The groups right in front of us, they were one with big margins, so they were finished. I realized I was two down with four to go. I had to win my match because we were at that stage, it looked like we were one point behind. And if I could win my match, we would hide the overall match and because we had wanted the previous time we would keep the right Because but after the parents came out I was kind of looking at them and just making some obvious assumptions Very rough that okay here one of their players playing really well We can swim or players so that they might win that one and I'll hear we're gonna win that one I kind of went through the whole 11 matches and

10 matches I guess it was and I Turned on wife. I said, I've got a funny feeling that's going to come down to my match. After Langor doubled the extremely difficult 14th hole, Erwin was two up with four holes to play. Everyone listening to this knows how it ends, but not many remember that as Langor teed it up on 15, he needed to win three of the next four holes and at least have the fourth or the cup was gone. I contacted our friends at Data Golf to calculate the likelihood of Langer coming back to win

the match and they estimated it would be about 3.2% at this point in the match. With all of the other matches on the course complete, both teams gathered around anxiously. Certainly have a lot of weight right down your shoulders when you look around. You see all your team members following along with last week's holds. In previous years, Bernard Longer had suffered a severe case of the YIPS. Severe. Double hitputs, four puts from three feet. In 1982, he had put a 15-footer off the green at the British PGA. But the arm-lock putting technique that he had adopted had been a lifesaver.

Irwin played the 15th hole poorly and long stood over a six foot par putt to win the hole that was essentially a must make. It fell right in the center. The lead was down to one. Very difficult par five on Sunday when Bernier and I get it across the water and either one on the foot near the green. The save was speaking. It could have been the,

I'm not sure, kind of bearish maybe on the other side. We're walking off the teed, very, very tense moment. And they're speaking Spanish and I just kind of like, hardly went up to the haysevy. What are you saying? And he told me,

there's too bad you didn't knock it in the water. Ha, ha, ha, ha. So that, that would be a response that would come from steady. Irwin was left with 188 yards in with his third at the 16th. Into the wind and off the left, his ball veered well right off a mound and into the gallery. Ian Wuznam would later claim that someone kicked or threw his ball from the sand into the grass despite the video showing the ball come down on the grass. Nevertheless, he's quoted as saying,

I saw the ball land at the top of a sand dune. I looked away for a few seconds, then turned back to see the ball sitting in the middle of a hollow pin-high right of the green, in a decent lie. Kurt Sampson notes that the tape also shows Wuznam smiling in the moments after Irwin's shot, sitting next to Sevy and in front of Fanny, not gesturing or raising a fuss about an injustice. With longer and a deep waist bunker left of the green, Irwin chipped up to three feet. It looked like the U.S. might win the cup right there. Longer we need to get up and down or rely on Irwin's miss from close range. Longer played out to six feet and calmly rolled in, yet another do or die put.

Irwin was one up and needed only a half on one of the last two holes to clinch it for the US. I just can't tell you how hard some of those holes were coming back in for taking the 17th to part three. It was the wind was blowing and he had a one iron. I hit a three wood just get it over the water over the left somewhere so you you really couldn't hit the green. It was almost like it's a drivable part for accepted to part three, but you didn't go at it. You had to play safely. Again, the wind was the worst possible win for Irwin's shot shape, but he got a three wood across the water. As his ball landed, a fan threw a ball towards the pin, confusing the television cameras, but not Irwin. As both players prepared to play from the short grass left of the green, hundreds of fans

move onto the actual surface of the green to watch the drama play out. Longer rolled it up beautifully to four feet. Erwin played too firmly and rolled at eight feet past. Nonetheless, he had a putt to win the Ryder Cup. It missed. Longer lined up his third straight do or die putt. Bernard Gallagher notes, Sevy wanted to help longer so much that he suggested

that I go out on the green at the 17th to tell him the line of the putt, which I was entitled to do, but I did nothing. I told Sevy that it would just add to the pressure on Bernard. Can you imagine my going forward in front of 20,000 people to tell him the line? In fact, my mind went back to Florida in 1983 when Jack Nichols had looked so in congruos going on the greens to help one of his teammates with the line. Both had it wrong.

Jack came out of that poorly. Longer settled in and poured the putt in the hole. I actually made three pots in the row that each had that kind of pressure to 15, 16 and 17. I think I had two to win two holes and one to tie a hole with hair there. If I had missed any of those three, the match would have been over. So he made some really crucial five, six, seven, eight foot pots coming in that really kept the match alive going down 18. Did I do my part? Well I made a couple myself, but I didn't do the spectacular stuff the Bernadette to keep himself in there.

So I was two down with four to play and I was able to manage to win two holes. I won the 17th and I think I won the 15th if I'm not mistaken. So now we're on the 18th P, Haleur and I are even level. Yet I had to and the European team was won down overall. So I had to win the last hole, to win my match and to win a point. It seemed like everybody was gathered around the 18 18 because there was no other goal to watch. And it all came down to that last hole. So all the players, most of the spectators,

they all wanted to get a glimpse, either there in life or at a nearby TV, as well. The gallery moved quickly along the fairway, trying to get green side for even a slimmer of a view. Longer drove beautifully down the middle. Hale tugged his ball badly to the left. It hit into the gallery. A lady who was actually with the PGA of America. It hit her. So it wouldn't have rolled anywhere. In fact, probably by hitting her, it made the

whole where I couldn't reach it to. There there are some bunkers in front of the green, then there's a little bear we've already got to do. Oh, I could just barely get over those bunkers. I couldn't even get to the green. So some people might say by hitting this person of the gallery, it kept him from going in the, no, no, I was still in the grass. It's just a catmixing getting closer

where I had a chance to get to the green. So I don't look at it as something that was good by any means. That lady was Kathy Jordan who was quoted saying I was just inside the ropes in the rough not in the sand. We stopped walking just as Irwin was about to hit. Then we heard a four yell and I turned away. It hit me on the small of the back on the left side just above the waist and bounced off. If you think that's where the story of this t-shot ends, you probably haven't been following this closely enough. Paul Brotter said, more than once that week, American balls appeared in the middle of fairways when they seemed to be headed toward places not quite so friendly. Hail Irwin's drive on the last tee in the last match was one. It was headed way left, yet suddenly

it was back in play. And Bernard Longer. One thing I never understood in which no one has explained to me was what happened on number 18 when Hill Irwin drove off. He totally snapped hooked his T shot 40 yards left of where his ball ended up. It looked like his ball was going into the sand dudes, but when we got down there, it was on the edge of the fairway where he could hit a three wood. We both came up short. I probably 20 yards short of game. 15 yards short of game. He just on the friends.

Irwin would later note that of course he was incredibly nervous. And it showed on his chip barely making it halfway there. Irwin had bogged 14 and 15, parred 16, bogged 17 and now appeared poised to make another boggy on 18. There was now a very real chance that Hail Irwin was going to lose three of the last four holes and the Ryder Cup was going to be retained by Europe. Irwin told reporter quote, I couldn't breathe.

I couldn't swallow. The sphincter factor was high. Johnny Miller told Golf Digest, there was more pressure put on those two players than ever was exerted on anyone on a golf course ever. Erwin's nerves might have been good enough to win three US opens, but this was too much, even for him. Longer played well from the French, but too hard. The ball rolled six feet past. Erwin came up about 18 inches short and longer conceded it.

Bogey. Longer was six feet away from retaining the Ryder Cup for Europe. Here's Erwin. By virtue of going down there several days more frequently, several rounds I've played more than anybody else on the team. I remember being in the team room and I told him if you're on 18 for whatever reason, there seems to be more of a back to front brake than it appears Whether it's a slope whether it's a drain where it's the way the wind comes to something is

Making that ball break more to the front than you think Question is what was I thinking about I was thinking that I hope burn it doesn't know what I know Yeah, we went through my routine You know looking at the parts from both sides and my caddy-pudicoman at the time was reading the parts with me and we both came to the same conclusion that it's a less-etched part, but it was a unique situation because I had two very crafty, fight marks exactly on that line. I mean, it was only a six foot part, so about a foot in front of my ball or something. There were these two crud, these spike marks standing up above the ground and they were exactly on my line's left edge.

So we both saw it, so we both saw there was a left edge path with a slope, but we had a quick discussion while I hit the spike mark. The ball can bounce left, it can bounce right, it can do anything and everything. And you have to understand the type of grass. Some spike marks are not as bad as others. When you play, you know, bent grass and it's a little moist off the grass, it's soft, so the ball goes more or less on over is,

but when you play Kioa and I think it was from Udegra, and it was late in the afternoon, about 5 or 6 p.m. or whatever it was, and the grass was it was windy and sunny, the grass was really crusty. So I figured that ball, if it hits those white marks, you had no chance. So we decided to avoid those spike marks by putting it straight, I figured it by aim at the middle of the hole. I would just miss the spike mark.

And hopefully the pot would only break slightly, so it would still go in on the right half or inside the right. And that's what Peter decided to do in the end. earlier that this was only to make it to 18 green all these spike marks based on and the paths they walked

that they could well have b on the souls of the stylo world wide spokesman Nick Nick Fowdo. Oh, you could hear a pin drop. It was just an amazing atmosphere. I'm not sure I've ever seen anything quite like it. I mean, I'm sitting beside the green. I got my head down, and he's generated a puff this four foot butt.

And I realized that we're probably going to end up tied. I feel bad because I thought we're gonna win by a big margin and we would have, we had the limo wreck, I don't think. Roger Melby said, I was at the front of the green when Irwin and Longer were putting out. The crowd was enormous and completely encircled the green.

I was kneeling next to Faraday. When Longer was over his putt, David announces, this is bullshit. We've all dreamed about having putts to win the open or the masters, but nobody wants this putt right now. It was as dramatic a moment as I have ever experienced. I thought I made actually a good putt, but it did break and went over the right lip and

then going. I had to make a decision about this by March what I try and hit him and go over him or go to the side of it. I made the best decision at the time I could and it was maybe the wrong decision. But that's golf. We make, you know, 70 decisions a day. I didn't watch the pot and then I heard this roar before I realized that he missed it. Pain jumped up and grabbed me and hug me and just started yelling, we won, we won,

we won, we won. Everything after that to me is a complete blur. I don't remember going into the ocean with our blue blazers on that picture you see all the time. No recollection of that. No recollection of the dinner that night or the party course, I was probably blasted out of my mind. Well, the immediate fact the immediate fact obviously was in a sense very disappointing because I felt like you know played good and I made a good putt and it didn't go in and I felt bad for the team. They all suffered because I didn't make that putt basically and the celebrations were tremendous on the US side. And rightly so, after being defeated for whatever was five or six years,

three times in a row now to have won it back on their own land. It's a wonderful achievement. But I know there were many, many players reached out to me and Halo and was one of them on the US side, but several others. And my whole team said, you know, nobody should have ever had to face their part and just tremendous pressure. But, you know, whatever they said at the time, I still felt terrible. That's just how it is in competition, especially that kind of competition, whether it's just

the winner or an loser, it's nothing else. Remember being on the 18th green, celebrating, and the crowd had just come onto the 18th green, and I was actually quite concerned for safety, because we're getting smashed up there. There's so many people pushing and shoving, and finally the police kind of asked

where to south through a corridor, and we got off the green and then we celebrated as a team and remember going over to the ocean and jumping in the ocean and trying to talk to them and it was a blast, it was really fun. I love Bernard Langard at the time so when he missed I was more gutted for him and how he would have to deal. He won the next due tournament by the way no big deal. He did.

So I didn't go down to the beach to celebrate because I don't want to rub his nose in it. If you'll notice the 18 whole celebration, you won't see me because I backed out because I love Bernard so much. I backed out of there. I didn't want to be a part of it. On the one hand, they're so excited to have won. On the other hand, I don't think there was a player there who's heart hard to bleed for longer. They all understood the weight that was on his shoulders. I've never seen tears from several of our star players before, you know, that's how much it meant to them, you know, that's how much the defeat meant. It's an incredible position to be in as an individual. I can only think of a few times maybe

in the history of the writer cup where that actually happened. But it didn't take me overly long. I had a lot of support from family friends, colleagues. And I actually traveled straight to the German masters, which is actually my own tournament. Like, you know, Arnold has theholt Classic and Czech has the Memorial tournament. I had the German Masters. It wasn't a good card so when we flew back Monday I faced the press on Tuesday, I played practice rounds and tried to you know move on with my life and basically my thinking was hey I did the best I could that's all anybody can ever ask of me.

I think that's the burn hearts that go away from it, was that he did everything right. It just didn't get the result that he wanted, but I was really proud of him and how he handled the whole situation as well. A lot of people have said they wouldn't have wished that put on anybody, and it wouldn't be my favorite, nearly dark, much darker

than what people think it was. And inside of that plot was putt breaking right for right-hand to players a very hard putt to start with when you can even see it. I remember going into the European trailer after a little while and just checking up on him and make sure that he was OK and, you know, Bernhard's a man of perspective, and he was fine. You know, he was good.

He told me he had a great putt, and he just misread it, and it didn't go in, or it didn't do what he thought, whatever. You know, a great attribute of Bernhard is he went out the next week and played, I think, in Germany, and he won the tournament. Every single person that I've talked to over the course of putting this podcast together

has mentioned the fact that Bernhard went out the next week and won. Here's Jim Moriarty documenting the US celebration. Honestly, God, this was the photographer's idea, sort of a group of us, went to the PGA, and we said, look, when we do that team photograph, this photograph should be on the beach, you know, and then, because they were gonna do it, to do it at the grandstands or whatever.

And we said, no, no, no, this photograph's got to be on the beach. So we get the whole team and we're going down to the beach to do the team photograph on the beach. And we do a quick photograph. And then these guys start throwing each other in the water, Okay? So now they're throwing each other in the water and it means like a bunch of kids. And so we all start running in the water to take these pictures of somebody throwing paving up in the air and in the water and they're throwing each other in and pushing each other down and stuff. And I get about, I get about to mid-thigh in the water. And all of a sudden occurs to me

my entire day's take of photographs is in my pocket. And if I go in the water, everything is ruined. Everything is ruined. And so all of a sudden, I just, I couldn't see myself, but I'm pretty sure my face turned as white as it's possible to be. And I turned around and I ran in the opposite direction. That's good.

And got everything out of my pockets. Yeah, I remember Marco Murrow grabbing me and walking through me in that water with Dave Sonson. And I just got down, I said. I'm not getting this beautiful jacket and I'm not getting sand in my bridges. I've been in that beach for the Downing South Carolina at Mertlebeats. I knew that's so fun getting the ocean pretty close on. I asked a bunch of the participants about the celebration and how that night unfolded. I think we all left. I think it was a worst celebration ever. Honestly, I think

we missed the picture. There was everybody's on the beach and... Oh, that was right after the match. Yeah, that was right after the matches. Those guys went down to the beach. Cal could like wreck the last four or five holes and lost this match. So he was going bananas, psycho somewhere. They vary. A lot of times the venue has a lot to do with it. It was a whole different scenario, but it was good. It was probably a little bit more reserved and you would thank especially compared to 83. You know you've had a successful rider cup career when you're comparing the venues of the celebrations. One team didn't really want to be there. That was a problem. So I'm not sure what happens now, but yeah, we had the victory dinner and

we were given some prints from Grand Baxter. I just went around the room and got everyone to sign those, like Aedin and but yeah, it's a fun atmosphere. One team's on a big high and the other team's really low and one doesn't want to be there. It just made it so much fun playing the European players. We knew them all really well. We had parties with them just about every night. Some of them could drink heavily. I mean, it was impressive what they could drink. And still go out and play great golf.

But we were good friends before the Ryder Cup. And I think we were just fine after. Everybody thinks we hated each other and all that. You know, Savvy taught me as much as anybody too. He was great. We were coming back, getting off the bus, going back to our accommodation. He did each other and all that. You know, Savvy taught me as much as anybody too. He was great. We were coming back, getting off the bus, going back to our accommodation

and I was walking with pain. Just out of the corner of my eye, he went up. It's almost like he had jumped up in the air because that wasn't the case. He and Wuzdom, who's relatively short, actually, but very strong guy, had come up behind paying, like his head between his legs and lifted him up on the shoulders just

in a second. And I thought that just really kind of mirrored what the two teams felt towards when we're still fun, still had the admiration, still had great respect. still had the admiration, still had great respect. What it did is it changed the rider cup dramatically from that point forward. I remember up to that rider cup was over. I think there was an effort on both sides from the PTA of America as well as PTA or being tour, get the captain together and to make sure that the future

right to come to play a little bit more friendly. That's the right word. The world got to see what it meant for two equal teams to go out there and fight it to the end. And that's what they got. And now that's what the right or cup's become because they're not saying work favorites or their favorites. It's just a if there's nobody's going to go and say well we're going to stop these guys. That didn't happen to Kewa and that's not going

to happen right off. For all the contentiousness that defined this event, none of it was ever pointed in the direction of Bernard Longer. But to this day, the relationship between Bernard Gallagher and Dave Stockton is frosty. Gallagher said, a lot of the American players were upset about their team's antics that week. A couple of them even wrote to me to say they were sorry and that the tournament hadn't been played in the manner they'd expect. I don't want to reveal who those players were out of respect, but they know who they are. He also said, the Dave Stockton sent me a Christmas card featuring a picture of himself and the winning US team, which I threw in the fire. Stockton said, I've seen him a couple times, but have I tried to talk to Gallagher?

No, he's not a friend of mine. I'm not even sure he likes himself, and I don't think it's worth my time to speak with him. I hope Bernard Gallagher has come to realize that I didn't have any alternative motives he and reading his book. I never wrote a book about it, because I didn't have any alternative motives. He and reading his book. I never wrote a book about it because I didn't think I should. He had always conspiracy theories that I had people that were going to call and do this stuff and nothing like that. I was just so honored, capping, I both, we're very honored to be picked to be the writer of capping. At the closing ceremony, Gallagher tells the story about shaking the vice president's hand and says, quote,

Even if it was undiplomatic, I told Dan Quail that I wanted to remind him that we in Britain and in Europe had servicemen killed in the Gulf War II. Quail looked bewildered. End quote. Quail made a short speech at the closing ceremony and then ducked out to play nine holes before darkness set in. The teams ate together that night, and Gallagher noted how somber the three previous victory meals had been, because unlike his chaps, the Americans take defeat so badly. Our team in contrast knew how to lose. Gallagher would be the captain of the European Radar Cup team again in 93, and finishes his book saying, we did not like losing, but losing the way we did so narrowly and with such dignity was not so bad. America regained their self-respect but only just.

They are sure to be worried at the prospect of taking us on at the bell-free. Dave Stockton wanted to keep his job but lost out. Tom Watson is the man the PJ of America has chosen to lead their team in 1993. His cap and sea will be different in character to that of Stockton. Tom has nothing to prove and seems determined to remind his players about the tradition that surrounds the Ryder Cup. The U.S. would also go on to win the 1993 Ryder Cup at the Belfrey. The last time they've won on European soil. I asked Bernard Longer for his parting thoughts on the 1991 Ryder Cup. Maybe three stories, really one was, you know,

the way Haleur handled it and he was very gracious towards me. Secondly, I was overwhelmed by the support of all my European team and colleagues and even many others in our defeat. You know, Saby was crying and he said me off and thought the overall support was incredible. And thirdly, I think I remember that I think Prince Stewart came over and just our team room and just said, hey, let's just celebrate our friendship. Let's just enjoy this time where I'll play in a great game and he kind of put it all in perspective. And that was pretty cool. game and he kind of put it all in perspective. And that's pretty cool.

That concludes our look back at the 1991 Ryder Cup. Again, special thanks to our partner BMW for bringing this episode to you, as well as the PGA of America for the audio you heard to Kurt Samson's book, The War by the Shore, Bernard Gallagher's book, Captain at Kioa to stew it more from the PGA tour that helped set up so many of the interviews. And to all of the participants, Captain Dave Stockton, Bernard Longer, Mark Kalkovekia, Hale Irwin, Chip Beck, Corey Payton, Paul Broadhurst, Paul Azinger, Lanny Watkins, and Jim Moriarty. Also, thank you to the golf channel for the audio clips from Fairety to the 2012 Golf Digest article titled The Routouting Rider Cup at Kiowa to Golf TV for the audio from Billy Foster and hopefully that covers off on all of the tremendous sources that I had to piece this material together. Thanks everyone for tuning in and hope to do more of these in the future. Cheers! Be the right club today. Yeah.

That's better than most. How about in? That is better than most. Better than most. Expect anything different.