The year 2008 found the American Ryder Cup institution in a desperate place. In Part One of this breakout Local Knowledge podcast series, we covered the years of misery, aka the Nightmare Era, that saw the U.S. suffer repeat humiliations at the biennial matches with Europe in 2002, 2004 and 2006. The most infamous of these was the 18½-9½ home drubbing at Oakland Hills in '04, when Hal Sutton's last-minute idea to pair Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson backfired spectacularly. Now, on the heels of three straight losses, the situation heading into Valhalla in 2008 looked dire. Not only did Europe have a very strong team on paper—one of the few times they've had a higher average World Ranking than the Americans—but Tiger Woods was out with a serious knee injury.
The situation looked about as hopeless as possible, but into this apparent void stepped a captain who was about to change how the Americans operated. Paul Azinger thought about the Ryder Cup constantly, long before he was a captain, and had compiled a 5-8-3 over his playing career in the competition. He had a front-row seat to everything that had gone wrong through the years, and when he met with PGA of America brass to discuss overseeing the 2008 team, he came armed with a few radical ideas. He wanted four captain's picks, he wanted to change the qualification system to better reflect pressure play, and he wanted a more direct influence over the course. Failure can breed innovation, and the woeful results of the previous three Ryder Cups gave him the leverage he needed to take control of the system.
In this week's episode of Local Knowledge, we look at the innovations Azinger implemented—almost all of which are still around today, albeit in evolved form—and how he brought a new tactical philosophy to the Ryder Cup with his idea of "pods," which accomplished the seemingly paradoxical feat of making the team closer by breaking it apart. Azinger's leadership, in combination with the almost comical incompetence of European captain Nick Faldo, allowed the Americans to pull off a shocking but definitive upset in Valhalla. Beyond that, it fundamentally changed the future fortunes of the U.S. Ryder Cup team, even if it took a moment for future captains to catch on to what he had achieved.
If Tony Jacklin was the George Washington of the European team, leading them from humiliation to triumph, Azinger was his American counterpart, and his tenure at the helm of the Ryder Cup team remains the most impactful moment in the team's history. Listen to the story below, or wherever you get your podcasts.