Ryder Cup: U.S. no longer preordained favorites
Posted: Mon September 29, 1997 at 9:46 PM ET
For as long as the American players are built
up as big favorites, the European team will
win more than its fair share of Ryder Cups.
The United States has managed to
win just two of the last seven pressure-packed
three-day confrontations with Europe.
And yet each and every time the
Ryder Cup battle commences, the Americans
are made favorites.
That was fine in the days when the
United States gave the combined Great Britain
and Ireland team a sound thrashing every
couple of years. From 1929 to 1977, the
Americans lost just three times and there was
one tie. The British and Irish were simply no
match for the best of the U.S.
When Great Britain and Ireland
became a European team in 1979, the picture
didn't immediately change. The United States
won 17-11 on home soil that first year and
18 1/2-11 1/2 at Walton Heath
in England in 1981.
But as Europe's top players, like
Nick Faldo, Seve Ballesteros, Bernhard
Langer, Ian Woosnam and Sandy Lyle, grew in
stature in individual competition, Europe's
Ryder Cup team developed new belief and
confidence.
In 1983, Europe was a single point
shy of winning the cup on American turf. Two
years later at the Belfry in the English
Midlands, Europe won by five points and went
on to triumph again at Muirfield Village, Ohio, in
1985. That was the United States' first ever
home defeat ... the age of exorbitant favorites
should have been over.
To further emphasize the point, just four points separated the teams
in the next four Ryder Cup matches.
But when the 1997 encounter at
Valderrama in Spain rolled around, few people
could resist making the United States "the
team to beat." It's true that from numbers one
through 12, the American team looked extremely
strong. Tiger Woods was a superstar addition
and was one of three 1997 major winners on
the side -- Davis Love III and Justin Leonard
were the others. Fred Couples, Mark O'Meara
and Tom Lehman gave the Americans an
experienced backbone. A tremendous team
was Valderrama-bound.
American captain Tom Kite could
sense, though, that not just one, but many
favorite tags were being attached to his
team, potentially weighing it down. He
wisely tried to play down the favoritism,
pointing to the fact that Europe had home-course advantage and a lineup that could in
no way be underestimated. But it undoubtedly
was by many people.
European players hardly infest the
top 20 in the world rankings. But Colin
Montgomerie is a four-time European Order of
Merit winner and leads the money list again
this year. Nick Faldo is a six-time major
winner who is tougher than most to beat in a
head-to-head duel. Bernhard Langer, Jose
Maria Olazabal and Ian Woosnam -- major winners all -- are Ryder
Cup veterans of proven quality. Costantino
Rocca was fifth in this year's Masters. Darren
Clarke and Jesper Parnevik came desperately
close to British Open glory.
And yet at no time did I hear any
pundit say: "Europe looks especially strong
this year. They are at home as well. They have
to be favorites."
Instead, most onlookers preferred to
dwell on Europe's supposedly weak links.
Clarke, Lee Westwood, Thomas Bjorn and
Ignacio Garrido were making their Ryder Cup
debuts and Per-Ulrik Johansson wasn't exactly
a well-known golfing figure in the United States,
either. Therefore, man-for-man, the assumption
was that the Americans just had to be better off.
These are poorly based
assumptions, however. Just because these
new European team members have not made
a major impact stateside doesn't mean they
can't play at the very highest level. They are
not seen week-in week-out by American
audiences, but that doesn't diminish their
skills. It's also worth remembering that
winning on the European Tour might not
catapult a player up the world rankings or
recognition stakes in the way a big-money U.S.
PGA triumph might.
The grass might not be greener on the
European Tour, but in many ways it's just as
hard to cut. The depth of talent is greater than
ever. Since Europe's breakthrough victory in
the 1985 Ryder Cup, the number of golfers on
that continent has more than doubled. Winning
tournaments there is no pushover.
Parnevik now makes his living in the
United States -- and a pretty good one at that.
But if you think about it, Parnevik was never a
big enough earner on the European Tour to
ever make a Ryder Cup team before. Now he's
an impressive enough performer in the U.S. --
very much holding his own with the American
big guns -- to have the European Ryder Cup
committee clamoring for his inclusion. Would
we really have had the Miguel Angel Martin
drama if Severiano Ballesteros had never
heard of Jesper Parnevik and simply had just
Nick Faldo and Jose Maria Olazabal to choose
as his two captain's picks?
If Parnevik can bolt the European
Tour relatively early in his career and make
his mark on the U.S. PGA Tour, then why
should we imagine the likes of Lee Westwood,
Thomas Bjorn or Ignacio Garrido couldn't do
the same.
Which might be a good time to
mention another rising Swedish star -- Gabriel
Hjertstedt, who on Sunday won the B.C. Open
in Endicott, New York. In doing so, he beat
Parnevik to the honor of becoming the first
Swede to win on the PGA Tour.
The Europeans must be
underestimated no longer. American teams
cannot forever be built up as
all-powerful-verging-on-the-invincible ...
especially when they are travelling to play on
an alien course with a high degree of difficulty.
Otherwise, we'll have the bizarre
and rather foolish scenario every two years of
the United States going in as favorites and
Europe as underdogs ... of the United States
players carrying the enormous weight of a
forever expectant nation on their shoulders,
while European players carry -- well, carry the
cup off again ... and of the United States
having nothing to gain but remarks like "You
should win with a team like that," allowing
Europe to go in with a "nothing to lose" attitude.
For as long as that continues, Europe
won't lose the Ryder Cup with any great
regularity.
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