The 44th Ryder Cup Matches will be held in Italy in autumn 2023 at Marco Simone Golf and Country Club in Guidonia Montecelio near Rome.
One can rest assured that the Europeans have not forgotten the merciless “whooping” suffered at Whistling Straits.
A quote from the movie “The Legend of Bagger Vance” speaks to the mystic of the golf purest: “You can never win at golf, and all you can do is play.” Once you have a mindset of winning rather than playing, the sharp edge of competition becomes blurred by what motivates one to compete. The focus becomes the person in the group rather than the challenge of the course and how one should manage the unique idiosyncrasies’ owning to every golf course. It becomes imperative that one manages this aspect of the game to achieve a lower score than his/her fellow player.
The great players of the past were highly skilled at matching wits with the course rather than beating the brains out of their fellow players. Oh, there was joy in winning a match, but the jubilation came from having won against the course not the individual.
Rand Jerris, in his book “Golf’s Golden Age” (in America), profiles the lives of golf in the early history of our country. Well-known and lesser names like Hagen, Jones, Egan, Macdonald, Shifford, Armour, and many other characters to fill a hundred pages of just names…. Suffice it to say, these great men and women gave life to men and women of the game to the likes of Sarazen, Palmer, Nicklaus, Ford, Player, Snead, and other greats of the modern era. In Jerris’ book and many others on the golfing greats, we find a common thread woven throughout the entire golfing body of men and women. A unique love of the game and an extraordinary admiration of one who has achieved a level of understanding the personalities of each course, thus able to not just hit a little round ball from “here’ to “there” but match wits with course designer and ultimately with the course itself.
Augusta National is a course that requires far more of the player to hit the ball long and straight and chip and putt well. Any of the professional entrants can do that. The course requires a relationship with the player….it demands to be respected and pampered when it cries (rainy days), and when it is thirsty (dry days) because she reacts like no other depending on the morning, she rises with the sun.
This respect for the game and the country’s courses allowed the men and women to focus more on the game rather than the individual and not who won or lost but how each played the game.
It was not uncommon for the Black players of the early days of golf in this country’s development to gather in the parking lot of the course they just played rather than feel the unwelcome stares and resistance of being seated in the clubhouse restaurant. They/we (yes, I remember well) the parking lot at Coffin in Indianapolis, Cedar Crest in Dallas, Avon in Cincinnati, Miami Springs, and all the other courses around the country where your money was more welcomed than your presence. That’s another story, and I digress; my point is that after a hard-fought round and the bets were settled, the guys would share the available beverage in paper cups or just bottle to lips. My bet with you was placed on my ability to win something away from you.
There was respect for your game that allowed the player to appreciate the achievement without disparaging the player thus I could pair up with you against another team, and we would trust and support each other beyond the intangible.
Today’s player seemed to have lost the focus of the game and has succumbed to winning….at all cost. Going for the throat, going for the kill, knocking down the flag, because winning is everything. And golf is an individual sport, so the more I win, the better I am perceived. Hence, top of the money list, player of the year, Major Champion, FedX Cup Champion, number one in the world rankings, and it begins at the peewee level. Americans are intoxicated with the idea of just winning.
Don’t misunderstand; I celebrate winning, and everyone loves a winner. It’s just that the winning mystic does not bode well for team competition once every two years. The World Cup…yes, and the team members are playing all year much like all team sports, but golf…alas, is not a team sport, and the Americans suck at it every two years.
Every two years, the Americans have to shed that highly developed individualist spirit and become team members because every team member is playing not for the money or winning but for the honor of playing for the country. Noble, yes, and we have done well in the past, but playing for a team and a concept is antithetical to the nature of the current American professional golfer.….not possible when it’s in your DNA to win on an individual basis.
The Europeans don’t play for individual honors or a particular country; they play for a cup and a continent. A cup that represents the bane of their existence as individuals. It doesn’t matter who the teammate is or his/her status on the world golfing stage, or the country of his birth; there is an intrinsic and unique bond tied to a common quest. Retaining the symbol that speaks to why they play, the Ryder Cup, and play so well. It’s that indescribable element in each member of the European team that allows them to play at a higher level than at any other time during the two years between the Ryder Cup matches. That intangible does not seem to exist in the American players.
One answer: Allow the makeup of the American team to represent all the countries of America. i.e., Canada, United States, Mexico, the Caribbean. Try and get back in touch with the love of the game as a game rather than a tool for riches. Allow more opportunities for Latin and Canadian professionals to compete in PGA Tour events so that a greater awareness of the individual inter-continental personalities can be meshed and appreciated much like the European Tour. It is no surprise that the European Tour players can name players from Spain, Denmark, Sweden, Ireland, Scotland, Italy, England, and so on. Yet, the American professional will have great difficulty naming more than one or two Latin or Canadian players…other than the few who’ve excelled on the PGA Tour. i.e., Mike Wier, Scot Dunlap, Dave Marr, Lee Trevino, Chi Chi Rodriguez, Jhonattan Vegas, Camilo Villegas, Angel Gerbera, and others.
The PGA Tour and golf in general in America has historically been exclusive and reclusive, infamously restricting participation from all who were not part of the “elite” culture of the American landscape.
To relive the discriminatory practices of the early days of the PGA Tour is like a “horse rode hard and put away wet.” It is encumbered upon the PGA Tour to find a way to expand the members of the Ryder Cup team to reflect the highest level of team play from more than just the contiguous borders of the United States.
Only two African Americans (Calvin Peete and Tiger Woods) and no Canadians, and Lee Trevino, the only Hispanic, have ever been selected to play on the US Ryder Cup team. Sorry, Tony Finau is not an African American. Adding any one of the following as a Captain’s pick would have added viewers and even more points: Willie Mack, Harold Varner III, Cameron Champ, or Joseph Bramlett. Sad, and unless there is a change in the way the team is selected…. Despite the huge and decisive win in 2020, the United States will never dominate the Ryder Cup Matches.
