How many ways are there to lose a Ryder Cup? Too many to count.
As European captain Luke Donald has shown in two straight victories, little details can make a big difference. Such as installing new, more comfortable bedding in his players’ hotel rooms. Plus strips at the bottom of the hotel room doors to block out hallway light so players sleep better. And more. Donald had every detail covered.
A little motivation never hurts, either. The European team room featured a wall emblazoned with big red letters: “We’re gonna go to Bethpage and kick their ****ing ass.” — Keegan Bradley.
The American Ryder Cup captain meant it to pump up and inspire his own team. But he should have uttered his battle cry behind closed doors with no cameras running. It is never smart to feed inspiration to your opponent, especially when history says you don’t back it up. Not the U.S. record of 3-9 in 21st century Ryder Cup matches.
There is also a perception of the U.S. team as greedy. There was Patrick Cantlay and the hat incident two years ago in Italy, followed by the pay-for-play agreement this year in which U.S. players would receive $300,000 to give to charity and $200,000 for themselves (although many said they were donating that, too).
Donald said his players don’t play for money, they play for each other. That was a pointed reference to the American team, which once again looked like a bunch of selfish individuals more than an actual team
Little things matter. Perception matters. Two years ago, a bevy of former U.S. Ryder Cup captains were invited by the PGA of America to attend the matches near Rome. Good idea, bad execution.
“We weren’t treated very well by (captain) Zach Johnson or that team,” says Hall of Famer Lanny Wadkins, who played in eight Ryder Cups and captained one. “We weren’t allowed in the locker room. We weren’t allowed in the team room at the hotel. We sat 10 feet from the door they walked past to go play every day. Not one person on that team said hello to any of us. I’m talking Lee Trevino, Raymond Floyd, Tom Kite, me, Ben Crenshaw, Tom Lehman, Paul Azinger, right on down the line to Corey Pavin and Dave Stockton. It was utterly amazing.
“If I’d been a player and had people like Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer and Jack Burke there, I would’ve spent all my time with them because I felt they had something I could learn. For us to be treated like that … that was one reason I didn’t go to Bethpage. I was turned off by the experience in Rome. I was ready for someone other than that captain’s group.
“I thought Keegan was the right person. Maybe he was a bit young but his attitude, his patriotism and his energy, I thought that was very good.”
Wadkins, 75, retired from his PGA Tour Champions broadcasting gig this year. He is a U.S. Ryder Cup stalwart. He played his first Ryder Cup in 1979 when it was still the U.S. versus Great Britain & Ireland and he’s seen the European rise to dominance from the start. His biggest takeaway from Bethpage Black and the latest Euro victory wasn’t the competition, it was the fans’ bad behavior.
“It was an embarrassment watching the New York galleries just make complete asses of themselves,” he says. “I was embarrassed. I couldn’t have been more disappointed that those were fellow citizens acting like complete idiots. It was completely uncalled for. Don’t forget, a couple of wives got (verbally) attacked. I told someone that if I was the PGA of America, I wouldn’t take another event to New York. Not a PGA Championship. Not a Ryder Cup. Not anything.”
Wadkins couldn’t help but look at the American loss from a past captain’s viewpoint. He would have done a few things differently last week.
“The first thing that struck me the first day was the golf course setup,” says Wadkins, who went 20-11-3 as a player in his eight appearances. “I said, ‘What the hell are they thinking?’ Every major championship we have, when it’s set up tough like a U.S. Open, the American players dominate the top of the leaderboard. We had a course setup at Bethpage with no rough. The greens never looked lightning fast. As captain, you’re in charge of that. That was the first big mistake.
“The second thing that struck me was on day one, I want to win that first match if I’m captain. I want to put somebody out there who I think, ‘There’s no way they’re going to get beat.’ Even though that happened to me (in 1995). My first team lost. I didn’t think Bryson DeChambeau and Justin Thomas were our strongest alternate shot team. Maybe best ball but not alternate shot.
“It looked as if Bradley and his vice captains thought having DeChambeau open the matches by driving the first green, or coming close, would make an intimidating statement and get the partisan American fans fired up.
“That’s just one shot. I don’t see one shot off the first tee making a difference.”
The DeChambeau-Thomas duo lost the match. Europe grabbed momentum and didn’t let go for the first two days.
“Another thing I noticed was when they were playing the second nine in the matches, I think it was Saturday, and the two par-3 holes, the players were hitting wedges to one and 9-iron to the other,” Wadkins says. “Really, come on. All I’ve ever heard is how hard and tough Bethpage is. It didn’t look very hard or tough when guys were shooting as many under par as they were. The rain on Thursday was a contributing factor but had the rough been six or eight inches long, the rough would have been tough. How many times were guys driving into the rough and their ball was sitting up like an Easter egg and they hammered it onto the green, no problem? I thought it was a longer course than it looked.”
The American rally in singles impressed Wadkins. Of course, he’s partial to Cameron Young, who attended Wake Forest on the Lanny Wadkins Scholarship he established for the university.
“Cam showed me a lot making that putt at 18 on Sunday,” Wadkins says. “I’m selfishly a big fan of his. He’s a great young man, he seemed to handle that course really well. I hope he’s a fixture on Ryder Cup teams going forward. I like his attitude. I don’t think he’s afraid of anything.”
Wadkins doesn’t like the U.S. captain having six picks, although he agreed with the six players Bradley chose. It used to be the entire team qualified automatically and no other players were added. For trivia buffs, Wadkins and Tom Watson were the first two American players selected as wild-card choices in 1989, by Raymond Floyd.
“I would like to go back to no more than four picks,” he says. “If a guy played well enough to be in the top eight, he deserved to be on the team. I don’t know when it changed, but I only had two picks in ’95.”
Another issue the Hall of Famer brought up was the envelope situation for singles play. Wadkins is an expert on the subject because in 1993, Europe’s Sam Torrance suffered a toe injury and wasn’t able to play. Wadkins volunteered to be the name in the envelope and even insisted that captain Tom Watson place his name in there.
Why all of a sudden should the rule be changed? It’s been around since 1979. It’s not like this is a brand new thing. It was instituted when we went from ten singles matches to twelve.
Wadkins asked to be in the envelope because nearly everyone else on the team was playing well that week, he was a captain’s pick and as an eight-time Ryder Cupper, he’d had his share of experiences and felt the younger guys deserved a chance.
“I told Tom, Put me in the envelope, then I can help you on the course if need be,” Wadkins says. “He didn’t want to do it. And honestly, had I known I was going to draw Seve (Ballesteros) in singles, I wouldn’t have offered. But Jim Gallagher beat Seve and I got the (default) draw with Torrance and we won.”
Ballesteros, the superstar from Spain, was the player who precipitated the expansion from GB&I to Europe in 1979 because he was a major drawing card and because the Ryder Cup hadn’t been very competitive. The U.S. coasted to victory every two years and the event didn’t get much attention. Ballesteros helped change that, eventually.
“Everybody was making a big deal out of Seve playing in ’79 and blah, blah, blah,” Wadkins says. “All I remember is Larry Nelson and I beating Seve in three straight matches at The Greenbrier and then Larry beating him in singles.
“The second one in ’81, Seve wanted to be paid to play and they (European PGA) wouldn’t pay him. So he didn’t play. When people credit Seve with saving the Ryder Cup, they fail to mention he was the first guy who said he wanted to be paid. That’s when he found out he wasn’t bigger than the game. He came back in ’83 and that was the first Ryder Cup that was really close.”
The 1983 matches were played at PGA National and Ballesteros, first out in Sunday’s singles, hit a 3-wood out of a deep fairway bunker on the final hole to salvage a halve with American Fuzzy Zoeller. It was a stroke of genius still considered by many to be the best shot in Ryder Cup history.
Wadkins was out in the 10th singles match and the Cup’s outcome came down to his duel with Jose Canizares. It was a wild match as Canizares holed out from off the green once and made some long putts while Wadkins missed some shorter putts that could’ve given him a cushion. At 18, Wadkins famously stuffed a 72-yard wedge shot close to rescue the Americans’ one-point win.
“That was pretty special,” recalls Wadkins. “It was only 72 yards but considering the circumstance and who was standing ten feet away from me — Jack Nicklaus and the entire team except for Tom Watson, who was finishing up his match behind me. It was pretty nerve-wracking.
“I always thought it benefited me that I always played fast. I almost hit that shot before I thought about it. So it was instinct and reaction more than anything else. A lot of times throughout my career, I thought, ‘If I could hit that shot at that time, I can handle whatever.’ I hit it a foot from the hole, Nicklaus went over and kissed the divot. Tom Kite smacked me on the back and said something. I went to talk and nothing came out. Probably the first time in my life I’ve ever been speechless.”
The Europeans, sparked by Ballesteros and captain Tony Jacklin, stunned that U.S. team at The Belfry in England, 16.5-11.5. It was the Americans’ first loss since 1957 and it was the last time the Ryder Cup wasn’t shown live on television in the U.S.
Europe won again in 1987 at Muirfield Village in Dublin, Ohio, and retained the Cup with a tie at The Belfry in 1989. The Ryder Cup quickly morphed into a big event.
Why have the Americans struggled to win this event? That’s a puzzle for the next American captain to solve. Wadkins likes Tiger Woods for the job.
“He deserves to be captain,” Wadkins says. “It would be interesting to see how he gets the players ready to play. I think if Tiger wants to be captain the next two or three times, he’s got it.”
