The Ryder Cup is the only major sporting event in the world
where the losing team has to sit and watch the winners receive the trophy.
Sunday night as darkness fell on Medinah Country Club, the American contingent
marched to the massive stage and watched the Europeans reap the harvest of
their Ryder Cup victory- the greatest comeback of all time.
You remember those times in life when the hands on the clock
seemingly creep from minute to minute. Will this ever end? That was Sunday
night in Chicago. Only at the Ryder Cup do you have to throw on a coat and tie
and go congratulate the winners. Only in golf would something like that happen.
If the Closing Ceremonies weren’t enough, the PGA of America
requires its players and officials to attend the post mortem press conference
in the Media Center. As the two vans took us to our destination one of the
players quipped, “Any chance we could just keep on driving through the gates
and get out of here?”
Once inside, Davis Love III continued to exert his role as
the keeper and protector of his twelve man squad. He fielded all of the obvious
questions about why Phil and Keegan didn’t play Saturday afternoon; why Tiger
and Stricker were at the end of the lineup; what he would do differently if he
had the chance.
Jim Furyk took the most brutal question when asked what was
tougher, the way he lost the U.S. Open and the Bridgestone WGC event earlier
this season or dropping the final two holes in the Ryder Cup. Furyk’s answer
was short and to the point.
“Obviously you have never played on a team,” he said as he
glared at the reporter. “I let these eleven guys down today. What do you
think?”
Following the media session, the players scattered to their
rooms and eventually to the team room. We, as officials, had to attend a
farewell dinner with the Ryder Cup Europe officials. The dinner did not get
started until around 9 p.m. and didn’t end until Midnight. It wasn’t anything
that any of us Americans were looking forward to. This is a tradition that has
existed for many years.
Until 1995, the two teams actually attended the farewell
dinner. Both captains decided that it was just too much to ask the losing team
to sit through dinner watching toasts and celebrations from the winners.
However, the Ryder Cup officials decided that the tradition would continue for
everyone but the players, mainly on the insistence of the Europeans.
Sunday night, Ryder Cup Europe could not have been more
gracious. Honestly, they were still in as much shock by their victory as we
were our loss. While the PGA of America solely owns the U.S. Ryder Cup, three
different entities share ownership of the European side of it- the European
Tour, the PGA of Great Britain and Ireland plus Ryder Cup Europe.
We were privileged to have two former European Ryder Cup
members at this year’s farewell dinner. Peter Baker from England and Jean Van
de Velde of France are both directors for Ryder Cup Europe. Van de Velde was a
member of the 1999 European Ryder Cup team that fell to the Americans at
Brookline, MA. That was the year when the U.S. trailed by the same 10-6 score
after Saturday’s play and Captain Ben Crenshaw uttered the famous phrase, “I
have a good feeling about this.”
The U.S. went on to rally just like the Europeans did on
Sunday. Ironically, Van de Velde fell victim to Love III in the singles match
at that historic Ryder Cup finale at The Country Club. The memories are still
vivid for the Frenchman.
“This loss by the Americans will sting for a long time. They
will wake up tomorrow and feel the pain,” said Van de Velde as we dined and
wined together Sunday night. “It will take a while to get over this one. For
me, there is some redemption tonight. It eases some of my pain from 1999.”
Van de Velde certainly knows the pain of defeat. He nearly
achieved an upset victory at the 1999 Open Championship at Carnoustie, when he
was the clear leader playing the closing holes. He arrived at the 18th
tee needing only a double bogey six to become the first Frenchman since 1907 to
win the world’s oldest tournament. He had played error-free golf for much of
the week and birdied the 18th hole in two prior rounds.
Despite a three-shot lead, Van de Velde chose to use driver
off the tee and proceeded to drive the ball to the right of the burn and was
lucky to find land. Rather than laying up and hitting the green with his the
third, Van de Velde decided to go for the green with his second shot. His shot
drifted right, ricocheted backwards off the railings of the grandstands by the
side of the green, landed on top of a stone wall of the Barry Burn and then
bounced fifty yards backwards into knee-deep rough.
On his third shot, Van de Velde’s club got tangled in the
rough on his downswing, and his ball flew into the Barry Burn. He removed his
shoes and socks and gingerly stepped through shin-deep water as he debated
whether to try to hit his ball out of the Barry Burn, which guards the 18th
green. Ultimately, he took a drop and proceeded to hit his fifth shot into the
greenside bunker. Van de Velde blasted to within six-feet from the hole, and
made the putt for a triple bogey seven.
This dropped him into a three way playoff with Justin
Leonard and Paul Lawrie. Lawrie, a member of both the ’99 and ’12 Ryder Cup
teams, would eventually triumph in the playoff.
On Sunday night, I couldn’t muster up the courage to ask the
great Frenchman which hurt worse- the loss of the 1999 Ryder Cup or the debacle
at the Open Championship. One thing was apparent though, Van de Velde was still
smarting from that ’99 Ryder Cup defeat.
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