The Ryder Cup

There's something about golf that's different this week. Golf has become one of the leading televised sports and week in, week out the PGA puts on a show. Sunday evenings find many millions of Americans, and foreigners too, huddled in the family room watching the sun set on another PGA event - will Rory McIlroy stay ahead or will one of the pack come up and take the trophy. From Congressional to The Masters, from Oakmont to The Fed Ex Cup - golf delays 60 Minutes here on the East Coast almost every week.

But it was interesting to hear this week the first time golf delayed 60 Minutes. In a recap of the 1991 Ryder Cup at Kiawah Island Golf Club in South Carolna, one of the PGA executives mentioned that network television stayed with the Cup coverage and delayed the network's programming for "The War On The Shore" as that year's Cup became known as it went down in lore as one of the greatest ever Ryder Cups.

What makes the Ryder Cup so enticing? Why was it that network TV decided to keep the cameras rolling? Why is it that I remember watching The Ryder Cup more than I do Wimbledon with my British friends during my years abroad?

Two reasons. First, The Ryder Cup is one of those rare times when professionals play for country rather than themselves. There is a higher desire, a greater good, a mightier meaning. It's so rare that the USA gets behind a team internationally. But The Ryder Cup is every two years on opposing sides of the foaming Atlantic. It's an international event and shows just how different the same game can be on different sides of an ocean. Churchill once said that Britian and America are two nations separated by a common language. We are also two countries, and now add Europe to the mix, separated by a common game: Golf. Deep down we know Tiger Woods doesn't enjoy playing a links course. And the Brits and Europeans just don't really understand Bermuda grass, the grass on most American putting greens.

This year at Medinah Country Club outside Chicago, Davis Love III, the American captain, has asked that the fairways be widened for his big hitters like Tiger Woods and Keegan Bradley. There's very little thick rough. The weather has been friendly with not much of a breeze with cool Autumn sunny days. You can wager that in 2014 at Gleneagles, nestled between Dundee and Loch Lomond north of Edinburgh, the wind will be whipping, the temperatures will be colder, and the rough will be thicker.

The second reason we love to watch the Ryder Cup is that the format is, well, just perfect. With professionals playing what we amateurs play every Tuesday morning while we skive off work, The Ryder Cup offers us, the viewers, a format we can relate to. It also puts the professionals playing against each other right in the same foursome - right there to stare down each other with a poker face while supposedly studying one's yardage notebook. The morning is a two-ball, alternate shot format, so different from the stroke play we see each week. The afternoon is a four-ball. Enemies on the tour are hamming and egging to win a point for their nation. What a change. It's a lot more like the Texas scrambles I like to play against my father's friends when I am home for the weekend. The only difference being there's no math at the end of each hole to figure out the handicaps with these guys at Medinah. If you're in the hole in 4, you're in the hole in 4. Oh yeah, one other difference: The shotmaking.

Ian Poulter reacting to abirdie putt.

Match play simply makes the opportunity for great shot making. Like Ian Poulter hitting inside Zach Johnson on the par 3's to within 4 feet, or draining 5 birdie putts on the last 5 holes to keep the European hopes alive. Match play allows Phil Mickelson and Keegan Bradley to become an unlikely American wrecking ball, putting away their opposition with shot after shot - face to face, tee to green. You can't play for the next hole when each hole counts and your opponent is 6 feet and pin high. Time to stop playing for the center of the green and two putt.


Perhaps it's that the Tiger has yet to win a point that shows just how different match play is. He and Steve Stricker have gone winless the first two days and Woods is the last match out on the course today in the singles competition. Did captain Love put him there to keep Woods out of the match? We'll never know. Woods probably won't have a part to play in today's finish. The Ryder Cup, with the USA holding a large lead, will most likely be over before Tiger makes the turn. But, if like in 1999, the Europeans make a comeback from a similar deficit, we'll all be watching Tiger as the anchorman against Francesco Molinari, number 31 in the world. It's a bit like Roger Federer playing Viktor Troicki. Who, you ask?

Yes, who. That's the beauty of match play, golf and the Ryder Cup. Each singular, graceful, green, different golf hole represents another chance to beat the guy walking with you, not just winning for you, but for your country. 18 pins flapping this morning in the slight breeze at Medinah. 18 chances to win it. 18 holes of glory.