Notes from the 37th Ryder Cup at Valhalla

Some of you know the ins and outs of the Ryder Cup. Others not so much. This entry is intended to offer a quick overview, followed by my own personal observations, having been on the course with my family at Valhalla, just outside of Louisville, for the deciding, singles matches on Sunday.

The Ryder began in earnest in 1927, when a team of golfers representing America, played against a similar one representing Britain in Surrey, UK. Since the inaugural competition, the Cup has been renewed biennially, the host site alternating with each competition (i.e. The U.S. hosts one year, two years later it moves across the pond).

Early matches between the two sides were fairly even, but after the Second World War, the U.S. began a long run of dominance, which led to a decision in 1979 to extend the British & Irish team to include continental Europe in the biennial event. As a result of this change the matches became more competitive and its popularity has soared.

The competition is unique in that unlike a traditional PGA Tour event, the Ryder Cup features only match play – a hole-by-hole format in which each team or player has a chance to win each hole, and ultimately the match. It’s the no limit hold ‘em of golf.

And if playing no limit hold ‘em takes skill, guts, and patience on a normal day, magnify that times 1,000 for The Ryder Cup: the World Series of Poker has nothing on the Ryder Cup. As John Feinstein writes in his best-selling book about life on Tour, the Ryder Cup is the one time on Tour when players just try: “not to throw up all over themselves.”

As for the actual proceedings, on Friday and Saturday two American players are paired up against two European players in various formats. When partners win enough holes, they win the match, earning a point for their team. If the two competing tandems win the same number of holes, the match is a push, and each team earns ½ point. There are 16 partner matches over the course of Friday and Saturday, before a day of concluding singles matches on Sunday.

Collectively, there’s more blood, sweat, and tears on Ryder Cup Sunday than the rest of the golf year combined. One American and one European in each match. Every match counts. And if a player loses, the memory is going to stick around awhile.

On the PGA Tour, there’s always next week to make amends. When you choke on Sunday of the Ryder Cup, redemption is at least 730 days away.

Adding to the suspense and pressure, the team captains don’t submit their Sunday lineups until approx. 10 pm on Saturday night, determining who plays who. Last weekend European Captain Nick Faldo chose Sergio Garcia to be his first player out on Sunday. Meanwhile American Captain Paul Azinger wrote-in the brash, uber-talented youngster Anthony Kim’s name in the #1 slot. The two of them this becoming the first match of the day.

Some captains like to send out their best players first, trying to win matches early on and keep the scoreboard in their favor. Other captains prefer to save their big guns are yet to come. As a general rule, the visiting team tends to send out better players early, hoping to quiet the crowd and keep the home team from establishing momentum (note: Nick Faldo did not adhere to that stratagem).

More than any other golf event, the crowd plays a huge part in the Ryder Cup. The aura on the course feels more like a collegiate football rival, with fans on both sides of the Atlantic adorning territorial pride, than a Sunday stroll as man hits little white ball. High-Fives and fist pumps maybe in short supply on Tour, but throughout the Ryder Cup every form of emotion and celebration – from crowd surfing to tears -- should be expected from fans and players alike.

Still doubting the hype? Note this quote from American player Boo Weekley (and I’ll give you one guess as to which side of the Mason-Dixon Line Boo heralds from):

"The adrenaline (from playing in the Cup)... I feel like a dog that somebody done stuck a needle to and it juiced me up like I've been running around a Greyhound track chasing one of them bunnies...yeah, it's amazing."

Unfortunately, in recent years American fans have been forced to stockpile their adrenaline (like a mother guarding peanut butter in a blizzard). Coming into Valhalla, the Europeans had won the last three competitions in decisive form, trouncing American teams lead by Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson in the last two Cups by record setting margins (18 ½ points to 9 ½ points each time).

And this American team was without Tiger Woods, who is still recovering from knee surgery. In short, the Americans were decided underdogs at Valhalla. Even on their home soil.

A final thought on the magnitude of the event: Kentucky native Kenny Perry scheduled his entire season around trying to earn enough points to become part of the Ryder Cup team. In the process he forfeited the opportunity to play in the U.S. Open and the British Open because he wanted to focus on the Cup.

Perry is having his best year on Tour by far, having won three different tournaments. Yet he skipped the U.S. and British Opens in the year he was most likely to win those tournaments, in hopes that he MIGHT get to play in the Ryder Cup.

On Sunday, Kenny Perry was one of twelve American golfers in Paul Azinger’s lineup. He would defeat Europe’s Henrik Stenson, the 7th ranked player in the World, giving the American team a key match en route to victory.

Rest assured, Kenny Perry doesn't regret the tournaments he didn’t play in this year. Not one iota. For him, and for the other Americans at Valhalla, this was a once in a lifetime experience.

Here are my other impressions from the Valhalla grounds.

10) The Ryder Cup is “Big-Time” in Europe.
American pride and enthusiasm were on display (everywhere) at Valhalla. Captain Paul Azinger asked the American crowd to wear red on Sunday, which conveniently doubles as the home color for the University of Louisville Cardinals, and the American fans went rojo loco. But it was hardly a one-sided affair: there were a ton of Euros roaming the grounds.

You need look no farther than the first tee to find an armada of flag-waving Europeans yelling “Ole!” every five seconds. Guessing they arrived not long after sun-up to snag those seats (play began at noon).

Behind the World Cup and all things soccer, the Ryder Cup is one of the biggest sporting events in Europe. Not sure it would crack our Top Ten. I’m a little jealous.

9) Zinger’s “Concept”
I’m looking forward to a world that is less conceptualized. I think I’m screwed.

Leading up to the Cup, Captain Paul Azinger was incessantly talking about how the Americans have been working on a gameplan and “concept” over the last two years. Granted, I think the captain’s approach to pairings on Friday and Saturday is important, as is his lineup on Sunday. I also think the captain sets the tone for the week and can help steady the rookies’ nerves. But a concept….really? Is sending out Anthony Kim first really in the same league as say, fractal geometry?

To be sure, Zinger did a great job, but let's not get his leadership at Valhalla confused with the Marshall Plan.

8) Kentucky Fried Nick
In the same breath as I refuse to anoint Zinger as a Golden God for shepherding the Americans to victory, I will also refuse to crucify Captain Nick Faldo for his role in the European defeat. But I am not the British media, and they, on the other hand, are ready to turn Nick into a baked and battered, November helping of turducken.

Faldo, owning to his credit the most Ryder Cup points of any player in history, now adorns such labels as “Captain Calamity” and “Faldo Folly.” The Times of London said this: “Faldo's thin skin, the need to have his sports shrink by his side even out on the course and his grating sense of humour, had confirmed what we knew all along, which is that he is no natural leader. But what we had not expected was that a man who had dedicated himself so much to this job would make such a colossal mistake."

In review: you win more matches than any player in history, and then you get hung out to dry because your team plays lousy. Tough one Nick. Muy tough.

7) The 13th Man
In football the crowd is often referred to as the twelfth man, implying that the eleven players on the field have an extra player with the crowd’s support. At Valhalla, the crowd was described as “the 13th man,” the decibel levels rising to galactic levels throughout the day in support of the twelve American players on the course.

As evidence, I was sitting behind the 6th green watching play come through when Boo Weekley holed out for eagle on the 7th green, which means I was approximately 800 meters away. The roar was so loud, you could have heard it five miles down the road. It rose out of nothing and then echoed throughout the course for a sold twenty seconds.

It was enough to make a grown man teary-eyed in appreciation.

6) “Boo-S-A. Boo-S-A.”
Speaking of Boo, A lot of good chants emerged from Valhalla last weekend. But none topped the now hallmark, “Boo-S-A” which bellowed from the crowd every time Weekley gave us reason to cheer, which was often.

A self-described good ole boy who would rather be hunting and fishing, Boo started play on Sunday with a Happy Gilmore “ride the pony” tutorial for the fans. But his play was anything but light-hearted; Boo scorched the front-nine in a lights-out 29 (six under par) on Sunday en route to an easy victory over Oliver Wilson.

Boo won over the hearts of thousands of Americans last weekend. He had me at howdy.

5) Boo vs. an Orangutan
And if chance you’re still running low on Boo octane, check out this true story that Boo offered up in a recent interview:

One Friday night when I was 16, a bunch of us went to the county fair. A truck pulled in there, sort of away from the midway, and we watched a guy get out and put together a big cage he had in the bed of the truck. After he got the cage together, he put up a little table. Then he went to the cab of the truck and brings out an orangutan. He starts yelling: "Five to win fifty! Who can beat the orangutan? Pay $5 to try and get $50 if you can whip him!"

We'd never seen anything like that before. We decided that one of us had to try, and I drew the short straw. Five of us put up a buck each, and I gave the guy with the truck $5. Before helping me into the boxing gloves and headgear, he made me sign a waiver. Looking back, that was a bad sign.

I got in the ring. The orangutan didn't look like much. He came up about to my chest, though his arms were as long as he was tall. When the match started, he didn't lift his arms. He kept them down at his side and used them to pivot and follow me as I circled him like Muhammad Ali. I just didn't see how I could miss. My strategy was to fake with my right hand, and when the orangutan tried to block the punch, I'd throw my left.

My buddies were going wild. "Get him, Boo! Kick his butt!" They really wanted that $50. I moved in close and faked with my right, and that's the last thing I remember. I woke up bleeding in the back of a friend's pickup. The orangutan had knocked me cold with one punch, which I didn't even see coming.

My friends thought it was hilarious. They said I had a glass jaw and called me "Glassy" the rest of the night.

After I came to, we watched this orangutan knock out guy after guy. Not one guy could lay a glove on him. He had reflexes like a cat, & later I learned an orangutan can tear a guy's arm off.

I've always half-denied this story--even though I was a kid and it happened almost 20years ago, I can see the animal-rights people protesting. I don't think orangutan fighting goes on anymore, which is a good thing. It probably wasn't fair for the orangutan, and it sure as heck wasn't good for me. The only winner was the guy driving the truck.

Seriously folks, you can’t make this stuff up.

4) $11 Well Spent
There’s so much action on the course, a spectator can’t possibly stay abreast of it all. Some serious strategery is required when you’re jostling amidst 40,000 other fans, trying to ensure you’re in decent position to see some of your favorite players.

Thankfully, the folks from the PGA hosting the Cup had the foresight to sell $11 radios on site, allowing spectators to listen to both the BBC and NBC coverage while roaming the course. Especially rewarding because you would hear a roar on the other side of the course and know what it was for.

A simple, inexpensive offering that enhanced my experience ten-fold. Surely there are more of these to be had in this world.

3) "The Fat Lady is Starting to Gargle"
The competition started to look pretty rosy for the Americans about the time that Kenny Perry clinched his match on Sunday afternoon, prompting one of the BBC reporters to foreshadow the European’s demise, “it might not be over yet, but the fat lady is certainly starting to gargle.”

Classic.

2) The Kentucky Boys
There were twelve American players on the Ryder Cup team. The best twelve Americans in golf, except for Tiger Woods.

Two members of that dynamic dozen got to play in their home state, in front of their home fans, on an American team that won for the first time in nine years.

Kenny Perry called it the most meaningful moment of his career, maybe his life. J.B. Holmes, another Kentucky native, won the deciding match with back-to-back birdies on #16 and #17.

If this reality hasn’t sunk in yet, let the osmosis begin: if you grew up anywhere near the Knobs, good things will happen to you.

There’s gold in them dere hills.

1) Exceeding Expectations
The whammies. The unforgettable moments in your life. They come in two forms.

First are the unexpecteds. Experiences that come at you from out of the blue. Moments that you could never anticipate, but that nonetheless stay with you forever.

On the other end of the equation are the knowns. The days you circle on the calendar months in advance. But sometimes the knowns disappoint; reality doesn’t live up to the hype.

But sometimes they do deliver. And occasionally, ever-so-rarely, you circle a day on the calendar and it still exceeds your predisposed, grandiose expectations.

Last Sunday at Valhalla, with my entire family by my side, was one of those days. I will remember it....vividly....forever.