Thoughts From Valhalla

By Bill Fields
Photo By Andrew Redington/Getty Images September 26, 2008

Even before the first shot was struck in anxiety at Valhalla GC in Louisville, it was clear the 37th edition of the biennial matches was going to be a Kentucky Fried Ryder Cup. No golf function is free of a bagpiper, even those held a long way from Scotland, but last Thursday's opening ceremony commenced with a bugler playing "Call To The Post." It was, after all, the last week of summer in Kentucky, land of backstretches and bourbon. Emcee Dan Hicks, of NBC, noted that Ben Hogan once called golf "a universal language," but the southern accent of the proceedings would be abundantly clear once play began thanks to the presence of Kentuckians Kenny Perry and J.B. Holmes and Boo Weekley from the Florida Panhandle on Paul Azinger's American team.

Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear concluded his remarks on the sunny afternoon by saying, a bit awkwardly, "Now let's go and rumble." Just a couple of hundred feet away from where Beshear spoke, in huge type on the back of the first-tee grandstand, was a quote from Samuel Ryder, father of the event, from 1931: "I trust that the effect of this match will be to influence a cordial, friendly and peaceful feeling throughout the whole civilized world."

While for decades the Ryder Cup was largely a goodwill exhibition between the United States and Great Britain, the modern incarnation has been more about competition than conviviality. With the U.S. having lost three straight Ryder Cups, the last two in routs, and five of the last six to Europe, Azinger hadn't been preparing for two years in the name of global harmony.

Azinger touched a lot of bases getting ready for last week, and left nothing to chance except how his charges would putt, which always is what the Ryder Cup comes down to and the area that Europe has excelled in claiming eight of the 11 contests since 1985. "I've got a feeling that we've got nothing to lose," Ben Crenshaw, captain of the 1999 U.S. team that won dramatically, said before play started last week. "To win holes, you've got to chip and putt."

In Azinger's mind, you've also got to have the gallery, "the 13th man," as he (and the souvenir T-shirts) called it, fully engaged, as if the spectators were playing for something. Late Sunday afternoon, with a 16½-11½ U.S. victory in the books and champagne spray having been substituted for the forlorn expressions on the Americans at The Belfry (2002), Oakland Hills (2004) and The K Club (2006), the home crowd was being toasted for its role as surely as Perry, Holmes, Weekley and the rest were being cheered for theirs.

It was no accident, no impromptu first-tee cheerleading à la the American wives at Muirfield Village GC in 1987 after their husbands had a bad first day. Azinger's message to about 4,000 people at a downtown pep rally Thursday night was clear: Customary golf-tournament etiquette could be breached. "I think I said, 'You can cheer when they miss,' " Azinger said the next day, following the morning foursomes. "Essentially, when we go over there, they cheer when we miss. I don't think the American fans are really into what the Ryder Cup is all about … that there is that other element. And it wasn't meant to be malicious, and I'm really proud that the fans have been absolutely perfectly behaved this morning. … I was just making sure that they understood if we win a hole, they can cheer, and even if somebody misses a putt for us to win a hole."

Azinger was unapologetic about lighting the fuse of raucousness, seeing it as tit for tat, because certainly European galleries traditionally have shown little pity for American mistakes across the pond, where the roars and songs reverberate when European blue goes up on the leader boards. "Well, their gallery's smooth, our gallery's got an edge," Azinger said Sunday evening, when asked to compare Ryder Cup crowds. "They sing those sweet, smooth songs that stick in my head. I was whistling 'Olé, Olé, Olé' on the way home last night, and my wife caught me. The song stuck in my head. But I heard those were the only words they could remember after eight beers."