The first shot of the Ryder Cup was hit on June 3, 1927, at Worcester CC. It was an event years in the making.

In 1921, Golf Illustrated funded a trip for 12 Americans to go and try to win the Open Championship at St. Andrews. Just like the Walker Cup, organizers decided to make the steamship trip worth the time and organized a match between the group of Americans and the best that Great Britain had to offer. Gleneagles was the site of that initial face-off. Attendance was free… probably.

Five years later, Walter Hagen wanted to set up a match against Great Britain again in the lead-up to the Open Championship. The plan was to have a stroke-play event featuring four players on each team, however, it turned into a match-play event with ten players on each team.

The Great Britain team won 13-1 at Wentworth. The plan was for Sam Ryder to present the Ryder Cup to the winner, but that didn’t happen. That’s because those 1926 teams consisted of some players who were not American citizens, so the matches were deemed “unofficial” (I’d find a way to make them unofficial, too, if my team was drubbed like that). The rules were changed so that each team had to include players who hailed from the country they were representing.

A year later, at Worcester CC, the British team was the same as in 1926, but half the American team needed to be replaced. Tommy Armour, Jim Barnes, Joe Kirkwood, Fred McCleod, and Cyril Walker could not play due to the new rules.

Team USA

Team Great Britain

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The date in June was selected because the British team was going to double-dip and play in the U.S. Open at Oakmont, along with the Ryder Cup.

Golf Illustrated funded the British team. Sam Ryder pitched in 100 pounds and then closed a budget gap with an extra 300-pound donation. Ryder made his money in seeds. He invented the seed packs that proliferate every garden store on the planet.

It seems that even back in 1927, the media would worry about the form of athletes heading into the big match.

The format of the matches in 1927 was a little different than this week at Bethpage Black.

On Day 1, they played four 36-hole foursomes (alt. shot) matches and then they played eight 36-hole singles matches on Day 2.

The U.S won 9.5 to 2.5.

72 years later, the Ryder Cup returned to Massachusetts. The Country Club hosted one of the most famous Ryder Cups ever when the U.S. erased a 10-6 deficit on Sunday to break a mini European streak. The U.S. had lost the last two Ryder Cups, and it was looking like Europe might win their third straight Ryder Cup for the first time ever.

In hindsight, that Ryder Cup at Brookline was huge because Europe would go on to win the following three Ryder Cups. Capping a dominant cycle of five wins in six matches from 1995-2006.

I was fortunate to be there on Sunday in 1999. My friend Ryan and I were bouncing around, trying to catch a glimpse of Tiger Woods. We witnessed the David Duval awkwardness on the 14th green… (I can never resist sharing this….)

Then we decided to head to the 18th fairway because it looked like the key matches were going to come down to the final hole. Mark O’Meara vs. Padraig Harrington and Payne Stewart vs. Colin Montgomerie were the two matches we had targeted.

We were 200 yards from the 17th green when Leonard poured in his putt and turned the tide of that day. It was also a massive putt in the grand scheme of the event, as it sparked arguments about ettiquette and unruly Americans. A classic European media trope that continues to this day and will absolutely pop up this week at Bethpage.

One other memory I have is from the first hole. There was a small set of bleachers on the corner of the dogleg, and we grabbed a seat and watched a bunch of groups roll through. It was a cool vantage point because we could also kind of see the second hole.

Jesper Parnevik hit his tee shot down the middle, but his approach shot might have gotten one foot off the ground and travelled (maybe) 70 yards. It was the worst shot I had ever seen in person from a professional. He would lose to David Duval 5&4 in the sixth match.

The pressure of the Ryder Cup is real.

The U.S. won the opening six matches on that Sunday; none of those matches reached the 17th hole. In fact, that middle group of matches were the only ones that were competitive.

There is really one true-blue Bay Stater who has played in the Ryder Cup over the last 98 years: Henry Picard. He played in 1935 and 1937 and earned the most points for the team in 1935.

The Plymouth native and two-time major champion is one of the most influential golfers of his era. He learned the game at Plymouth CC and won the 1938 Masters and 1939 PGA Championship. His green jacket is on display at Canterbury GC in Ohio were he was a beloved head pro.

While Picard was at Twin Hill in Oklahoma City, he taught Jack Grout, who would go on to teach Jack Nicklaus.

More on Henry Picard in a previous newsletter.

This year’s captain, Keegan Bradley was born in Woodstock, Vermont. He graduated from Hopkinton High School and won the Massachusetts State Championship as a part of a very talented squad. Bradley wasn’t even the best player on the Hopkinton team. Jon Curran, who played at Vanderbilt, was one of the top juniors in the country.

Here’s a list of players with Massachusetts connections. I had no idea Paul Azinger was born in Holyoke, Mass. He would move to Sarasota, Florida, and he attended Florida State.

Listen

👂 Paul Burke and I preview the Ryder Cup (My mic didn’t connect, so I sound pretty rough, especially in the intro, but it gets better. And Burke sounds great.).

🇮🇪 In 2021, I did two “Ryder Cup Characters” podcasts. The first was about Christy O’Connor (listen here) and the other was about Boo Weekley (listen here).

🏆 Shane Ryan recorded an exceptional podcast series in 2021 about the history of the Ryder Cup called Ryder Cup Run.

❓ Does a Ryder Cup captain matter? No Laying Up goes deep into the impact captains have on the Ryder Cup. Listen here.

Read

🥚 The Fried Egg ranked the last 12 U.S. Ryder Cup captains.

🖋 Geoff Shackelford is required reading this week. His Quadrilateral newsletter has a mix of paid and free content.

🔥 Brandel Chamblee let it rip on Monday night on Live From… most of his ire was aimed at Bryson Dechambeau and how he’s a “captain’s nightmare.” Chris Powers at Golf Digest wrote a bit about this mini-rant.

👇 Worth watching

💰 Tickets for the Ryder Cup are expensive. BUT, practice rounds on Wednesday are actually dipping…

Looking only at StubHub, which currently has the lowest prices for the practice days, you can nab a Tuesday ticket — again, if you’re buying them in pairs — for as little as $83 and a Wednesday ticket for $117. Thursday prices also have plummeted, to $112, in part, surely, to the rainy forecast for that day. (Seat Geek, which is the official ticket supplier for PGA of America, showed no listings for below face value.) Those rates represent markdowns of 65%, 50% and 74%, respectively.  -Golf.com

Watch

🚜 The Frieg Egg’s “All Grass is Local” is a good insight into how Bethpage Black was basically revived in the late 1990s.

🏌‍♂️ Peter Finch headed to Worcester CC to play the host of the inaugural host course.

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