Enter the locker room: this is a history of the Ryder Cup like you have never experienced it before. From the origin matches that preceded the first official trans-Atlantic encounter between Britain and America at Worcester Country Club in 1927, all the way through to the fortieth installment at Gleneagles in 2014, this is the complete history of the Ryder Cup – told by the men who have been there and done it. With exhaustive research and exclusive new material garnered from interviews with players and captains from across the decades, Behind the Ryder Cup unveils the compelling truth of what it means to play in golf's biggest match-play event, where greats of the game have crumbled under pressure while others have carved their names into sporting legend.
The definitive story of the Ryder Cup—the event that pits the best golfers from America against the best from Europe—exploring the modern history of the tournament that led to the showdown at Whistling Straits in 2021. The task facing Steve Stricker at the 2021 Ryder Cup was enormous. It was his job, as the American captain, to stare down almost 40 years of Ryder Cup history, break a pattern of home losses that had persisted almost as long, and reverse the tide of European dominance in one of golf's most tense and emotional events. This was the epitome of a must-win, but it was also something more—in the entire 93-year history of the event, no American side had ever faced this kind of pressure. Starting on the morning of September 24, those 12 players competed not just for a Cup, or for pride, but to save the reputation of the U.S. team itself. The great mystery of the Ryder Cup is that America loses despite having superior individual talent. The European renaissance began in the 1980s, led by the brilliant Tony Jacklin and Seve Ballesteros, and since then, the U.S. has suffered a slew of embarrassing defeats abroad and at home. The signs in 2021 weren’t good: Tiger Woods was out after his horrific car crash, Patrick Reed (“Captain America,” to his supporters) was hospitalized with double pneumonia weeks before the event, and America had to rely on its rising stars—including Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka, who spent most of the year immersed in an escalating feud—to prove their mettle. Meanwhile, the European team had a few major stars of its own, like Jon Rahm, the world no. 1 and the first Spanish player ever to win the U.S. Open, and Rory McIlroy, the four-time major winner. Throw in the complications of a global pandemic, and the stage was set for one of the strangest Ryder Cups ever. Following the drama in Wisconsin while deconstructing the rich history of the tournament, The Cup They Couldn't Lose tells the story of how the U.S. defeated Europe in record fashion, restored their status as golf’s global superpower, and transformed their entire way of thinking in order to truly understand the nature of the Ryder Cup. **The Sports Librarian’s Best of 2022 – Sports Books**
Golf fans will not forget the 39th Ryder Cup in a hurry. Staged at the Medinah Country Club just outside of Chicago, the 2012 event has already gone down as the most remarkable competition in its 85-year history. The American team had home advantage, and a golf course unapologetically set up to suit its own players. Supported by tens of thousands of loud and proud fans, the USA's star-studded line-up dominated the first two days and ended the Saturday with a seemingly unassailable 10-6 advantage. No away team had ever won the Ryder Cup from such an unpromising position. Sunday was singles day, traditionally the forte of American teams. The situation looked bleak, especially when European team member and number 1 golfer in the world, Rory McIlroy, very nearly missed his tee-off time. Yet slowly but surely, the European team - who had top-loaded their line-up in one last throw of the dice - started to turn the scoreboard blue. With inspirational captain Jose Maria Olazabal stiring European blood with thoughts of the late Ryder Cup magician Seve Ballesteros (whose silhouette was emblazoned on the players' sweaters and bags), the tide turned and the previously dominant American players started to crumble in the face of the onslaught. Suddenly European players were holing miraculous putts to win holes out of the blue. Something very special was happening. When German Martin Kaymer sank his putt on the eighteenth green to clinch the point that retained the Ryder Cup, the most astonishing comeback in the event's long and distinuished history was complete. Miracle at Medinah is the compelling narrative of those amazing three days in Illinois, a fitting chronicle of an unbelievable sporting story.
This book, written by noted golf historian and author Martin Davis is a large, beautifully-produced coffee table book, printed in five colours by one of the finest art book printers in Italy. In the works for over 6" years, the book contains 499 pages, including five spectacular gate fold spreads -- including a Ryder Cup Timeline that folds out to almost five feet, 18 featured essays by many of the sports world's finest writers including John Feinstein, Pulitzer Prize winner Dave Anderson of the New York Times, Jim McCabe of Golfweek magazine and John Hopkins, golf correspondent from The (London) Times. Also included is in-depth coverage, in words and large photos, of each and every of the 40 Ryder Cup contested, including the most recent one at Gleneagles in Scotland in the fall of 2014. It is the most definitive, accurate, and up-to-date book on the Ryder Cup ever produced and, uniquely, includes original reporting by iconic golf writers Bernard Darwin, Grantland Rice, and Herbert Warren Wind.
A book for sports fans everywhere, The Ryder Cup is the definitive history of this exciting and prestigious global sporting event--now updated to include the 2016 competition. Fiercely fought every two years, the Ryder Cup pits teams from Europe and the US against each other in a sport usually associated with individual play--and with national pride at stake. This beautifully illustrated and fully updated book tells the story of this great tournament, from its humble beginnings in 1927 when Great Britain played the US for a trophy provided by seed merchant Samuel Ryder, to the postwar dominance of the American team, to the introduction of European golfers in the late 1970s, to the struggles of today, including the Team USA victory in 2016. Along the way, it looks at each of the Ryder Cups, and features the great players, pairings, captains, and courses.
'I have always thought Gleneagles is one of the greatest places in the world to play golf' - Jack Nicklaus Tracing the history of the Ryder Cup back to that famous forerunner match at Gleneagles in 1921, this book intertwines the histories of the coveted prize with the five-star resort's own rich heritage, on and off the course. Through a series of over 80 in-depth interviews with an array of national and international celebrities, including Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Lee Trevino, Sir Jackie Stewart, Andy Murray and Stephen Hendry, Jewel in the Glen reveals what the Ryder Cup and Gleneagles means to them while examining the impact of the tournament on the local community and the wider Scottish society, culture, and economy. With a foreword from golf's greatest player, Jack Nicklaus, designer of the Ryder Cup 2014 course, The PGA Centenary, and a hole-byhole guide by Ryder Cup legend Colin Montgomerie, this volume paints a unique and absorbing portrait of Gleneagles and Scottish golf as a whole.
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Good Walk Spoiled, a dramatic chronicle of the bitterly-fought 2016 Ryder Cup pitting a U.S. team out for revenge against the Europeans determined to keep the Cup out of American hands. Coming into 2016, the Americans had lost an astounding six out of the last seven Ryder Cup matches, and tensions were running high for the showdown that took place in October, 2016 in Hazeltine, Minnesota, just days after American legend Arnold Palmer had died. What resulted was one of the most raucous and heated three days in the Cup's long history. Award-winning author John Feinstein takes readers behind the scenes, providing an inside view of the dramatic stories as they unfolded: veteran Phil Mickelson's two-year roller-coaster as he upended the American preparation process and helped assemble a superb team; superstar Rory McIlroy becoming the clear-cut emotional leader of the European team, and his reasons for wanting to beat the US team so badly this time around; the raucous matches between McIlroy and American Patrick Reed - resulting in both incredible golf, and several moments that threatened to come to blows; the return of Tiger Woods not as a player but an assistant captain, and his obsession with helping the US win - which was never the case when he was playing. John Feinstein's classic bestseller, A Good Walk Spoiled, set the bar for golf books. Now Feinstein provides his unique take on the Ryder Cup, which has clearly become golf's most intense and emotional event...it's 'first Major.'
The true story of the dramatic 1991 Ryder Cup at Kiawah Island, which changed the competition in golf forever. The 1991 Ryder Cup began in 1985. Up to then, the biennial match between all-star teams of golf professionals from America and Europe was more ceremonial exhibition than real competition, with the Americans consistently beating the Europeans. That all changed in 1985, when the Europeans wrested it away at the Belfry in Sutton Coldfield, England. The Europeans would go on to win again in 1987, and in 1989 the competition ended in a draw. By the time the 1991 Ryder Cup arrived, the American team had vengeance on their minds. The 1991 Ryder Cup also occurred between the United States’s victories in both the Persian Gulf War and the Cold War that year, and the sense of patriotism that came along with the end of those conflicts permeated the national psyche. The competition was broadcast to over 200 million people in twenty-three countries across the globe. Fans forgot golf ’s gentlemanly code of conduct, and loud boos, jeers, and cheers of “USA!” could be heard from the gallery. The Ryder Cup began to resemble the Super Bowl, and it quickly became evident that this match was about more than just golf. In The War by the Shore, veteran golf writer and bestselling author Curt Sampson chronicles this pivotal competition. He interviewed dozens of key players from both Team USA and Team Europe, and provides historical context to explain why the tension was ratcheted so high at this particular Ryder Cup. Well-researched, engrossing, and deeply entertaining, The War by the Shore is the story of when golf lost its manners (and, to some extent, its mind).
In Cracking the Code: Building Teams for Sports, Business, and Life, Azinger and Braund tell the compelling story of how the U.S. team, half of them Ryder Cup rookies, overcame their underdog status to bring the Cup back to American shores. In the telling, they offer team-building techniques that apply to sports, business, and beyond.
Tony Jacklin rescued the Ryder Cup from oblivion. Following years of American domination, interest in the event nosedived in the 1970s. It was Tony's appointment as captain of Europe in 1983 that helped resuscitate the matches and launch the remarkable transformation of a competition that is now one of the biggest showpiece occasions in the world of sport. This book takes us on a journey through Tony's Ryder Cup career, his seven matches as a player and his four as captain. It details his friendships with some of the game's greats like Seve Ballesteros, Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer but also chronicles the times when he hit rock bottom - the sudden and unexpected death of his first wife, his own recent struggles with ill health, the year he lost everything financially and his affair with a sixteen-year-old that was splashed on the front page of a tabloid newspaper.
