If you were an American with an interest in the Ryder Cup circa 2007, you could look back through history and see a story that kept getting worse. Starting in 1927, and through 1981, the U.S. dominated Great Britain, and then Team Europe, to an absurd degree, losing just three times in more than 50 years. To an extent, it was a miracle of sorts the event continued at all. Then, starting in 1983, Tony Jacklin and Seve Ballesteros oversaw a brilliant transformation of Team Europe that ushered in a golden age. Between 1983 and 1999, only one Ryder Cup was decided by more than two points, and six of those nine finished with a final score of 14½-13½ or 14-14. After the 9/11 attacks in the U.S, and the delay of the 2001 Ryder Cup until 2002, that golden age gave way to a nightmare. Three straight defeats ensued, and the 2004 and 2006 losses in particular were humiliations—dual 18½-9½ throttlings at the hands of an ascendant European team.
Throughout the modern history of the Ryder Cup, Europe had been at a talent and resource deficit, and thus had been forced to find advantages wherever they could, be it in team chemistry or strategy. Over time, the succession of captains built up a template that became more and more sophisticated, incorporating lessons from both wins and losses. The Americans, meanwhile, felt no compulsion to do likewise, because their talent was enough to produce easy wins in the early days and close Ryder Cups in the golden age. Inevitably, though, as the European system got better and better, and the talent began to draw even, it reached a point where the balance tipped, and the U.S. had no answers.
If necessity is the mother of invention, after 2006, it was the Americans who found themselves in desperate need of answers. This week, Local Knowledge is launching a new series on exactly how the U.S. pulled itself from the depths and restored the Ryder Cup to a state of equilibrium. That all began in 2008, but in part one of the series, which you can listen to below or wherever you get your podcasts, we focus on the era of humiliation—2002 to 2006, when talent alone could no longer carry the Americans, and they were fodder for the European meat grinder. This is as low as it got, and to understand how Paul Azinger and others managed to bring them out of the dark times, you have to reckon with the dark times themselves. These were the miserable years.