Get Her Off the Pitch! (17 page)

We tend to think that Ryder Cup Sore Loser Syndrome is a modern phenomenon, incidentally, but we are wrong. The history of this competition is rigid with examples of losers complaining about the weather, the course, the type of grass, the crowds, and even the unfair superior skill of the opposing team. In 1947, when the British and Irish team were beaten in Portland, Oregon, by 11 points to 1 (the one point was scored in the very last match, too), captain Henry Cotton asked for the clubs of the opposition players to be inspected for illegally deep grooves, so convinced was he that the Americans' success with backspin could not be down to talent alone. Ten years later, at Lindrick (near Sheffield), the Americans suffered a rare defeat and complained about the biased Yorkshire crowds, and three of the team were so pissed off they refused to attend the prize-giving. ‘They cheered when I missed a
putt and sat on their hands when I hit a good shot,' whined Tommy (‘Lightning') Bolt. In his frustration at losing by 4 and 3 to Eric Brown in the singles, Bolt broke a club across his knee. He told Brown that he hadn't enjoyed their match at all, to which the sportsmanly Brown is said to have replied, ‘No, neither would I if I had been given the hiding I just gave you!'

In the decades prior to the Big Ryder Cup Post 9/11 Dither of September 2001, the supposed friendliness of the contest had been stretched to breaking point on several occasions. This was, I'm sure, one of the factors in the decision to postpone. What no one could face (although of course no one admitted it) was the idea of either:

1. pumped-up patriotic American golfers with ultraconservative politics coming over here to kick ass in Sutton Coldfield, while their supporters grunted ‘
   USA
   !
   USA
   !' in a warlike manner; or
   
2. depressed and shocked American fans all subdued and not chanting ‘
   USA
   !
   USA
   !', making us feel really terrible if we beat them while they were down.
   

The thing is, since the mid-1980s, the Americans had been granted their wish: the contest had evened up, and they had found themselves the affronted losers on several occasions. In 1987, at Muirfield Village in Columbus, Ohio, they lost, narrowly, on home soil - moreover on a course that their captain, Jack Nicklaus, had himself designed. This sort of setback had tested their sportsmanship, and what a surprise, light-heartedness in defeat turned out not to be their best talent - just as Europe's has never been
grace in victory, when it comes to that. ‘We just love the Ryder Cup!' the Americans have continued to profess, but the teeth are now quite likely to be gritted when they say it. On each occasion I have attended the Ryder Cup (since 1997), the Europeans have lined up at the opening ceremony with beaming smiles, as if for a group birthday outing, while the Americans in their preppy blazers have looked tense, formal and grim - not to mention also pale of brow and oddly peanut-headed without their usual baseball caps.

It is unfair, though, to expect the golfers to get the balance right. The correct balance has, arguably, never been struck in the history of the fixture. Everyone who cheerfully wants the Ryder Cup to be a substitute for warfare still reserves the right to say, wagging a finger, ‘Now, high spirits are all very well; but don't forget golf is a civilised game for civilised people.' I think this may explain why Tiger Woods - who diplomatically claims to adore the Ryder Cup - clearly suffers like a martyr on a gridiron every time he's forced to play it. I think his nature rebels. Golf, for him, is about winning by being the best. If he'd wanted to play team sports for a living, for heaven's sake, would he have chosen golf ? It is often said that the current top American players are less good at bonding as a team than the more lowly-ranked Europeans, and this is sometimes blamed for their recent lack of success in the Ryder Cup. Are they maybe a bit spoiled? Are they too rich? Are they too
entouraged
? Well, it may simply be they are too good. It is completely understandable that a successful golfer should have difficulties taking one for the team, or enjoying a group hug. Golf is not a contact sport. It is, in
fact, an
anti
-contact sport. As we have seen in the previous chapter, it is an ostensibly sociable game that in reality attracts people who are secretly (or not so secretly) misanthropic bastards.

Lovers of the Ryder Cup tradition are quick to remember moments of sportsmanship - as, for example, when golfers on the winning side have conceded missable putts, to take the pressure off of an opponent. In 1969, at Royal Birkdale, Jack Nicklaus famously picked up Tony Jacklin's marker, three feet from the hole on the 18th, and said, ‘I don't think you would have missed that putt, but in the circumstances I would never give you the opportunity.' The result of Nicklaus's historic gesture was a 16-16 draw - although this wasn't quite as noble as it sounds, since the rules state that the defending team retains the Cup in the event of a dead heat. But how terrific of him, and what a great way to put it - ‘I would never give you the opportunity'. This lovely story makes me think of the shiver-up-the-spine moment at the end of the movie
Batman Begins
, when Lieutenant Gordon says to Batman, ‘I never said thank you,' and Batman replies, ‘And you'll never have to' - before spreading his cape and diving off a parapet to swoop into the night.

However, such superhero moments are rare in the history of this competition, and in recent times there has been a lot of head-shaking about the Ryder Cup getting too bellicose, especially after the meetings in America in 1991 and 1999. Taking place against a background of global conflict, the 1991 Ryder Cup was played at Kiawah Island in South Carolina, where the us team got so infected with Desert Storm patriotic fervour that the press dubbed the
event ‘The War on the Shore'. In 1991, the us hadn't won the Cup for eight years, and were pretty sore about it - but still, how they managed to confuse golf against Europe with bombing Iraq was never adequately explained. There was an unprecedented unpleasantness about Kiawah Island, which the Americans finally won by 14
¹
/
₂
to 13
¹
/
₂
, the whole result turning on a single missed putt by Bernhard Langer, the horror of which has arguably marked the poor chap for life. Corey Pavin and other us players wore Desert Storm caps. Galleries whooped, bellowed and screamed. The Europeans were subjected to insults, offensive prank calls, spectators chucking decoy balls onto the course, and even a daft campaign (started by a local radio station) to deprive them of sleep by yelling outside their hotel in the small hours. After the victory, us player Paul Azinger said: ‘American pride is back. We went over there and thumped the Iraqis. Now we've taken the Cup back. I'm proud to be an American.'

I wasn't there in 1991, but I have a vivid memory of the Sunday afternoon eight years later, at Brookline, Massachusetts, in 1999. It was a famous day, for one reason and another. The Americans had finished the Saturday four points down, which meant that, to win the Cup, they needed at least 81/2 points from the 12 available in the singles matches - which, frankly, looked like a tall order. No winning team had ever started the Sunday with more than a two-point deficit before. We Europeans were culpably light-hearted about how well things had gone for us in the preceding two days; we had celebrated tactlessly (there was even, I'm ashamed to say, cheering in the press restaurant); we were fools not to register the intensity of the
anger and wounded pride now pulsing through our opponents. La la la, we trilled. Hey ho, lighten up you guys, it's just a game, but aren't we good at it, la la la la la, New England in the Fall, what could be nicer, la la la la la? Imagine a blithe little lamb with a ribbon round its neck skipping about in front of a wounded and starving lioness, and you get the idea. I always remember our collective euphoria in watching the 19-year-old Sergio Garcia paired with Jesper Parnevik on those first two days: in the four matches they had played together, first they had beaten Tom Lehman and Tiger Woods, then they had beaten Phil Mickelson and Jim Furyk, then they had beaten Payne Stewart and Justin Leonard, and then they had halved against David Duval and Davis Love iii. Bloody hell. Could this really be happening? They larked about together, Sergio and Jesper. They hugged and high-fived. They jumped into each other's arms. Can you imagine how obnoxious this behaviour must have been to their opponents? At what temperature, I wonder, does human blood literally start to boil?

All week the Europeans had infuriated their hosts by appearing to take the contest lightly, their captain Mark James setting the tone by being hilariously flippant in his public statements - in contrast to the deep, full-fathom-five solemnity of the us captain, Ben Crenshaw, who said things were ‘very, very meaningful', and that Sergio Garcia had a ‘very, very wide arsenal' (scary moment there, actually). James's press conferences were completely disarming. He said the thing he feared most about the Americans was their dress sense. It was like watching a person repeatedly cheeking a humourless us immigration officer,
and getting away with it. ‘What was your best decision today as captain?' James would be asked, and he'd say, ‘I had the hamburger for lunch instead of the turkey sandwich, and I really enjoyed it.' Asked why he parked his captain's buggy at a particular place on the course, he said he usually chose a spot where he could catch a bit of sun. ‘Tell us about Miguel Angel Jimenez,' a reporter pleaded. ‘Well, I don't know a huge amount about him,' said James. ‘He's got a Ferrari.'

Boy, were we asking for it. And boy, did we get it. On the Saturday night, according to legend, Ben Crenshaw invited George W. Bush, then governor of Texas, to fire up his men by reading to them a stirring appeal-for-help letter written at the Alamo. The next morning the us team arrived on the course pumped up to a frenzy of battle resolve, and incidentally wearing the ugliest shirts you've ever seen. It was shock and awe time again, basically - and before the happy little European lamb could say ‘Baa?', it was torn to pieces, reduced to nothing more than an interesting spatter pattern, a stump of woolly hoof, and a poignant strip of ripped and bloody ribbon caught up on a bit of shrub. In the first six singles matches, the us players absolutely slaughtered us, and the crowd got the taste for blood. One by one, the Europeans were simply blown away. In the end, only four of our boys were able to make a game of it on that Sunday - Padraig Harrington, José-Maria Olazabal, Colin Montgomerie
and Paul Lawrie - but no one has ever accused the Europeans of choking. On the contrary, those who scored points against the Americans are regarded as heroes. The crowd was so appallingly abusive to Colin Montgomerie that his dad left the course in disgust. Mark James's wife was spat at. All day the crowds just shouted at the Europeans to go home.

Personally, I was exposed to only about an hour of this. Given the deadline difficulties of filing copy from America to London (the first deadline is around 1.30 p.m., and the last is around six), it was necessary to spend most of the Sunday working in the air-conditioned press tent, watching the singles matches unfold on
TV
screens, and updating pieces for each edition. However, at last spotting a gap between deadlines, I walked out to the nearest point of the course in time to see Colin Montgomerie and Payne Stewart come by, and it was one of the most shocking discontinuities I've ever experienced. Passing from the
TV
version of the event to the reality was like walking out of the Reading Room of the British Museum and into the trenches of the First World War. It was unnaturally dark out there, for a start. The atmosphere was almost unbreathably thick; people were yelling abuse; there was an air of violence. As someone who had spent three years mingling with football crowds, I was no stranger to this sort of thing. But I had never felt it on a golf course before, and I hope I never will again.

This was all prior to the events on the 17th hole - events which every person considering what to do about the Ryder Cup in 2001 must have had in mind, even if they didn't say so. Having already secured eight of the required eight and a half points, a number of excited American players were gathered at the 17th green to cheer Justin Leonard in his match against José-Maria Olazabal. Olazabal had been four up earlier in the match, but Leonard
had putted beautifully, making birdies, and had eroded Olazabal's lead until they were all square after 16. If Leonard won the 17th, he would ensure a half-point for his team, and therefore victory. If he halved it, he still stood the chance of winning (or losing) the match on the 18th. Arriving at the green, Olazabal had a twenty-foot putt for birdie; Leonard was putting from around forty-five feet, also for birdie. With one of those shots that ring around the world, Leonard made that brilliant putt, with the result that his team-mates, whooping and shrieking, charged onto the green in triumph. They knew Leonard hadn't won the hole yet, but they went berserk anyway, and the pictures of that mad moment became instantly iconic: the American players and caddies surging, leaping onto the green in the foreground; an impassive Olazabal in the distance, head bowed, presumably battling to contain his feelings (as I suspect he always is). This was the moment when all that guff about golf being a gentlemanly sport simply went up in smoke.

Now, the Americans had had a fantastic day. Despite the considerable hindrance of the hideous shirts, they had played magnificently. They had staged the biggest fight-back in the history of the competition. But the fact that they ran out onto the green at the 17th before Olazabal had had a chance to putt was, in golf terms, a heinous sin, and unforgivable. Had Olazabal halved the hole, and gone on to win the 18th (and as it happens, Olazabal
did
win the 18th), he would have prevented - or at least delayed - the us win. Given that the eventual score was 14
¹
/
₂
to 13
¹
/
₂
(and Europe needed only 14 points to retain the Cup), Olazabal's putt was just as crucial as Leonard's had been.