How Ryder Cup rivalry was born: ball tampering, 'underdog' Seve & The War on The Shore - How It All Played Out

0:01This is a Global Player Original Podcast.

0:11The Ryder Cup is nowadays a huge commercial juggernaut, a travelling circus that moves from state to state in the US and from country to country in Europe, three days of cacophonous noise, colour cash and controversy. It wasn't always that way, though. For years, the Ryder Cup was a civilised, calm exhibition match which bore all the hallmarks of what makes golf the game it is, a game of sensible clothing, etiquette, strict rules and a lot of silence. Then in 1979, Great Britain, bored of being whipped by the Americans, morphed into Europe and Europe started competing and winning.

0:52The Ryder Cup changed overnight. It stopped being an exhibition match and became one of the most fiercely contested of global sporting occasions. Inevitably, that spilled off the course and into the crowds. How did golf go punk? This is how it all played out.

1:17It's interesting, Paul, isn't it, that along with cricket, maybe the most civilised game of all, and as we said in our opening, the Ryder Cup, which was essentially an exhibition match, you know, between 1959 and 1985, Europe didn't win at all. But in extraordinary the last 40 years, how maybe with a change in golf as well, it's gone from a genteel occasion to absolute mano a mano gladiatorial excess in many ways against noisy crowds. Yes. And there's another point there, which is that golf has always prided itself on being the most incorruptible game. the game where no one would even dream of cheating because it would violate every principle of human life for a golfer to cheat.

2:01But actually reading about these Ryder Cups in the 1990s that we're going to talk about, it's astonishing how much alleged cheating there was in those two Ryder Cups. And of course golf was always a game for lone hunters. It was an individual game. It was a game for individuals. And the Ryder Cup when it started was a ceremonial end of season get together. It was a friendship between British golf and American golf. There was no edge to it. It was all manners and nice meals and hotels and let's have a round and just keep the two tours connected. In the 1970s, Jack Nicklaus complained to Lord Derby at Royal Lytham that the matches, quote, just aren't competitive enough.

2:42The problem the Ryder Cup had was that the USA would thrash the UK year in, year out. And so, as you said earlier, Mark, in 1979, it became USA v Europe. And with that was born the concept of continental clashes, team golf in a continental cauldron. Now, that's great bringing the Europeans, but unless they brought in an X factor, nothing was particularly going to change. Not just an X factor that they were good golfers, but that they were competitive beings. And that's really where the modern phenomenon of the Ryder Cup owes so much to one man, doesn't it? to Seve Ballesteros. Without him, we wouldn't be where we are today because Europe wouldn't have started winning in the manner that they did, not just in Europe, but in America.

3:25And he is at the centre of our story here. He is at the centre of the controversies. So this is a character worth explaining because without him, the Ryder Cup might still be the exhibition match that it was in the 60s, 70s. Well, absolutely. So you had domineering, presumptuous and sometimes complacent country club America against this new thrown together outfit called Europe. You know, people from lots of different countries, lots of different backgrounds and cultures. It didn't sound like a very promising form. It never sounded like it would be a team. It never, it didn't sound like it was going to work.

3:55But the thing that Europe had in their favor was a kind of underdog spirit, a kind of resentment of this American arrogance. And in Seve Ballesteros, they had a leader for that feeling. He led through that feeling of, you know, these Americans looking down on us. They think they're better than us. You know, we can unite against them. We can beat them, you know. And Seve Ballesteros was a very kind of intense, brooding character. He was a sort of borderline genius on the golf course. He was creative. He was charismatic. You know, he was emotional. And he is the guy that Europe needed at just that point as a way of rallying, of rallying a European team and saying...

4:36He was a sort of touchstone of all. It was a lightning rod. That's the word I've got before, weren't they? All sort of centred around him. Yes, absolutely. And he's a brilliant player in his own right as an individual, but he sort of almost came to define himself with this battle, this historical battle against the Americans. Particularly, I think, as his individual career, because he'd been an Open champion. People probably remember. I remember as much about Sebi Bajosteiros holding a putt, I think, wasn't it, at St. Andrews, and he gives it the other day, and he's punching his fist. I think people remember that.

5:03But as his individual career just started to ebb away a little bit in terms of individual achievements, because, you know, you used to laugh about him hitting it into the car park, and then he'd rescue it from the car park because his short game was genius. It's almost as if his individual career and his Ryder Cup career crossed, didn't they? Yes. And as individually things weren't going quite so well from him, it was the Ryder Cup that just lit the Bunsen burner underneath him. He found a second life, I suppose, in the Ryder Cup. And he was also, you know, he liked money, Ballesteros, and he liked having a profile, and he liked his own brand.

5:35And, you know, his Ryder Cup brand was the passionate, fearless, implacable guy who'd lead his troops into battle against America. And you couldn't take your eyes off him, really. And some of it became quite personal. And even that was no bad thing for him because the European supporters flocked to him because they felt he was standing up to the Americans. So 1985, for the first time since 1959, the Europeans win at the Belfry. I remember this very clearly. It was a massive event. It was massive. But then two years later in Ohio on a Jack Nicklaus design course, they win away. Ohio, tough place to go.

6:10Good away win. But it was absolutely, that was a phenomenal win. 1989 is a draw at the Belfry, so they retain the Ryder Cup. So you've now got 85, 87, 89. Suddenly the Americans are going, well, hang on a second. This is our cup. What's going on here? And I think we have the situation going into 1991 where having won three in a row, the Americans are smarting from that. And it's coinciding with what's going on in global politics in 1991. Yeah. And we like a feud on this program. And a feud is developing nicely in 89 between Paul Eisinger and Servi Ballesteros, who go head to head in the singles at the Belfry.

6:51Ballesteros asked to have a damaged ball replace but Eizinger successfully objects to that so Ballesteros hits back by asking whether Eizinger had properly dropped his ball blah blah blah Eizinger says is this the way you want to play? Is this the way you want to play? The technical details are almost irrelevant but what you're getting is this feud developing in 89 between Eizinger and Ballesteros it becomes more and more entertaining more and more kind of febrile So this carries over beautifully into 1991, a Ryder Cup that is known in history as the War by the Shore.

7:41The War by the Shore is a pretty strong phrase to use in the context of a golfing tournament. Yeah, it certainly is, particularly given the global situation. Absolutely. This takes place at the ocean course at Kiowa Island, South Carolina, shortly after the end of the first Gulf War. America, the country, is still pretty much fired up by this. And some of the players turn up on day one in camouflage hats. The opening ceremony features a military flyover and a Marine honor guard and a drill team from the Citadel. I'm not quite sure what the Citadel is, but some of the Europeans are rankled a bit by this.

8:19They think the Americans have turned it into a Gulf War celebration. It's a display of hardware, isn't it? Did you see what Sports Illustrated's John Garrity said? The Europeans look like Soviet dissidents forced to witness a May Day parade of weaponry in Red Square. Yes. And Dave Stockton, the American captain, says it was the Gulf War years and there was a lot of American pride. and I wanted to feed on the American pride and I wanted people to be proud of America and what we stand for. Some of the people took it the wrong way. Now, I'm going to suggest, Mark, that some of the people who might have taken it the wrong way were people actually on the front line in American military uniforms.

8:58Because if you've been fighting in Iraq and you turn on your TV to watch a golf tournament and a load of millionaire golfers from California and Florida are channeling the Baghdad spirit, then I don't know about you, but I'd look at that and think steady on. And also, it was pointed out by the European team, of course, that there have been British military personnel in Iraq as well. This wasn't just an American military intervention. You know, there had been forces from other countries of the world. They just got everything wrong. There was just a misstep every time. That was a bit OTT or the military hardware.

9:31And then at the gala dinner, which is on the Wednesday night, so it starts on the Friday, on the Wednesday night, they obviously have a film going great, you know, Ryder Cup moments of the past. And it's essentially five minutes of Europeans and 20 minutes of Americans. Oh, they're great shots. And the Europeans are absolutely fuming. And Ken Schofield, who's the CEO, who I'm sure you've interviewed, I did a few times, was absolutely livid and either wanted to get on stage or walk out or both. But was basically just very, very offended and went, what is this? And even Dave Stockton had the grace to think, I've tried hard.

10:04Well, he said he tried hard to keep a lid on it. And yet at the same time, as you just said, he wanted the Americans to be proud of what they were. But he knew that the film was wrong. He knew the film really was cringeworthy because, you know, it takes two to make a great sporting competition. You can't have 20 minutes of film of one and five of the other. No, and Nick Faldo says if it's a war they want, let's give them one. And there's another really delicious little detail which I love, which is that Payne Stewart, the American golfer, opened the windows to the American team Kondo, which was directly above the Europeans, and he blasts Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA as loud as his volume will go.

10:44Now, the reason I like that so much is if he bothered to look at the lyrics to Born in the USA, Born in the USA by Springsteen is often misappropriated as a patriotic message, but what it's about is about people being sent to die in Vietnam for no good purpose. And so the protagonist gets in trouble. with the police, whatever. And so he put him in the army and send him off to Vietnam. Oh, for the meat grinder. Yeah, exactly. So it's very much an anti-war, sort of anti-patriotics. It sounds like the great American rally. Yes, it does. I didn't know that, to be honest. Nor did Payne Stewart. Payne Stewart didn't read the lyrics.

11:16Interestingly, because we're so used to everything being televised nowadays, it was the first Ryder Cup televised live for its three-day entirety. Travis Pewterbaugh, World Golf Hall of Fame curator, calls it, in the end, a milestone in the event's transition from a gentlemanly exhibition to a high-stakes international competition. But Ray Floyd, who's playing again, was actually captain in 1989 to the Americans. He's back in the team. He said, listen, the Europeans were pretty bad at the belfry. He said, you know, they were quite smarting even at this stage. They were going, hang on, you were cheering bad American shots at the belfry.

11:50So before you get too high and mighty, just remember that. You don't know who you're going to play against. In other words, The European captain, the first one is foursomes, alternate shots. You put your four pairs down. The Americans put their four pairs down. And it's just pure coincidence that Eisinger and Ballesteros are playing each other. And actually, Dave Stockton looked at that and went, oh, my. He knew from the word go that it was something was going to kick off. Yeah, and kick off it did pretty quickly. So Ballesteros and Ole Fahbel accused the Americans of changing balls. Now, for the layman, what they were doing is using different compression balls on different holes to give them an advantage in terms of the approach shots and so on.

12:35It's a complete no-no in golf to do that. Ballesteros and Ola Tharbel are calling them out for this. They get away with it. The Americans, meanwhile, take umbrage with Ballesteros coughing in the middle of their swings. Floyd, Raymond Floyd, challenges Ballesteros in pretty forthright language, by all accounts. I pulled him up from kind of clearing his throat in the backswing when Freddy Couples was playing, says Floyd. And at the end of the day, just to cap it all off, Eisinger calls Ballesteros the king of gamesmanship. So after one day, the whole thing is bubbling nicely. I mean, we talked about Ballesteros' character.

13:11Eisinger, he's good humour, but he likes a contest. He's incorrigible. He's incredibly competitive. He's feisty. He's cussed. So he is up for this scrap as much as Biosteeros is. And there's another sort of little subplot to what was going on. The Europeans said that their radio... If you ever go to a Ryder Cup and you see it on the television, you'll see lots of people bombing around in buggies. Now, that's the captain and all their vice-captains. They're obviously going to see how matches are getting on. And they're transmitting news to each other and how people are playing. And they can talk to each other on walkie-talkies.

13:44Now, the Europeans claimed that their walkie-talkies were on an open channel. In other words, if they spoke to another guy on another buggy, everybody else could hear it. So one stage, Bernard Gallagher, who's the European captain, turns his off. So he's unaware of what's going on when Biosteiros and Olathabel accuse the Americans of changing the ball, which is against the rules. By the time he turns his radio back on, they go to the 10th. But the rules of golf mean you cannot retrospectively punish them with holes because you didn't call them up at the time. And apparently Azinger, as soon as he realised he was going to get away with it, stopped trying to fib and started admitting it.

14:21Because he knew nothing could happen. So this is another lovely subplot that Ballesteros thinks he knows he's cheating, but we can't do anything about it because the holes have been played and you can't retrospectively do anything about it. And, you know, did they sort of do something with the radios? Because the American radios are working fine, of course. Absolutely. And Ballesteros accuses correctly the Americans of changing the ball three times. and he says famously, this is one of the great Ryder Cup lines, the American team were 11 nice guys and Paul Azinger. Oh! And what did Azinger say coming off the 10th?

14:55Nice try, guys. Nice try, guys. So Azinger gets you tried, you were right, but you can't do anything about it. So that's Friday. It's all going off on Friday. And as Paul says, Pavin and Azinger are wearing camouflage hats. On Saturday, which is day two, There's a message from George Bush senior, who's president, saying basically, come on, America. And there are people then going, hang on a second, what's happened to this great sport that actually we've got a situation where the president, who shouldn't actually be taking sides, the president actually is saying, come on, the Americans. You know, this is this is not part of what the game is.

15:32So that was on Saturday. And then we get to the Sunday singles. and there's another really important backstory here which is the fact that on the Wednesday on the way to the opening ceremony there had been a sort of small car shunt and one of the Americans, Steve Pate had got bruised ribs and he wasn't fit enough to play on Friday but he played on Saturday and then he cries off on Sunday and this is very significant. Now he was drawn to play Ballesteros so Ballesteros would have beaten him and David Guilford, another European player was drawn to play Wayne Levi who was having an absolute shocker.

16:07So the Europeans were very confident about getting two points there. But because Steve Pate withdrew and the Europeans had to put a name in a hat just in case this happened, and it was David Guildford, that match was halved. So the Europeans go, well, we were banking on two points. We were probably going to get a point and a half. And the Europeans are really pissed off, aren't they? Bernard Gallagher says it was unsportsmanlike. Dave Stockton didn't tell me. I didn't know in advance. I only find out at breakfast. David Guildford's obviously really upset. No one's talked to him about it. this is a dream to play in the Ryder Cup, and now he can't play.

16:38And you, Steve Pate, were fit enough to play on Saturday and apparently get on a par five in two, a long par five, but suddenly you're not fit enough to play on Sunday. So if you weren't fit enough to play Sunday, but you did Saturday, you shouldn't have played at all. You should have been withdrawn before the Ryder Cup and somebody could have replaced you. So that's a big story. The more we talk about this, the dirtier it gets. I'm starting to feel that the American team was being managed by the CIA because there's quite a lot of dirty tricks in there. Radio's not working, balls being replaced, people suddenly dropping out in the singles.

17:09So all this means that we come down to the final match, which is Heil Owen and Bernhard Langer. So 27 matches have been played. If Langer wins the match, the match is tied and the Europeans retain the Ryder Cup. So Langer's two down after 15. He wins 16 and 17. He's putts brilliantly on the last three to stay in touch. And they stand on 18. And the interesting thing about 18 is you've got dunes down the left hand side and wind from the left and hale irwin has a fade which if you don't play golf means when you hit the ball it tends to drift right so hale irwin's thinking sheepers i've got wind off the left and i faded my ball is going to be taken right so i need to try and hit it down the left hand side and that's very well remembered mark yeah well in 2021 a piece appeared in Golf Magazine, written by a man called Mark Rolfing.

18:01If they didn't call him Golfing Rolfing, they bloody well should have been. There's something wrong with the world. There is, exactly, yeah. So Rolfing Rolfing was an NBC employee who was standing on the 18th tee in the scene you described, soaking up the atmosphere, enjoying the antagonism, and he watches Hale Irwin's ball sail off into the wind and into the sand dunes. So everybody thinks, anyway. That's way left, says Mark Rolfing, live on air. So they all pile down the fairway and Rolfing expects to be in the dunes looking for the ball himself because that's a common practice for on-course reporters.

18:45You must have done it lots of times because you walked down the fairways countless times. When we get to 1999, there was a big moment when I was looking for the ball. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So he gets there and this sea of humanity parts as the ball searchers come through. They're heading into the sand, into the sand dune. And suddenly everybody realized that this ball is actually on the fairway. It's not in the sand dunes at all. Somehow it's found its way to the fairway. A snap hook into the dunes has suddenly found its way onto the fairway. Yeah. And it's amazing that the Europeans didn't make more of this at the time.

19:20There's no ambiguity about this investigative piece. He did a great job going back to speak to people and try and work out where the ball did actually land. How did the ball get there? He concludes all these years later. That question remains the greatest mystery of my broadcast career. So it's pretty clear what he's saying. And he's an American NBC employee. So if Hale Irwin's tee shot doesn't get back onto the fairway somehow, Langer probably wins that hole anyway. Yeah, absolutely. So someone has kicked it there or thrown it there. There was an official called Kathy Jordan says it hits her in the back.

19:51She said she had a welt to show for it. And in those days, the crowds weren't as well contained as they are now. There's no real ropeage or anything like that. So it's just us seeing the mass of humanity. I think there's every chance it did hit somebody. I'm sure that bit's completely true. It probably hit somebody and then somebody could just give it a boot. I mean, Bernard Gallagher says that a European supporter said to him a few days later, I saw somebody throw it back. Really? And Bernard Gallagher goes, well, maybe you did. But the case is closed, obviously. Nowadays, you'd see it because there were so many cameras.

20:19Yes. Yes. The cameras weren't as sophisticated. You know all those arcing cameras, tracing cameras you have now, trajectory through the sky? This is, you know, over 30 years ago. There was nothing like this. Much easier for the crowd to cheat in those days. Much easier to cheat. So suddenly they're both on the fairway off the tee. And now it's a completely different scenario. Yeah. And then we see Langer holding his putter 30 feet from the hole. Langer had problems with putting all the way through his career. Wonderful player, consistent over decades. He's, you know, a real exemplary figure, but his putting was a torment to him very often.

20:53So this 30-foot putt, you're not going to have much money on him to hold that. He hits it. He's too bold, and he rolls six feet past. So Irwin now has a 20-footer to win, which stops two feet short. Langer concedes the putt and leaves himself with a six-foot putt to save the Ryder Cup. And what does he do? Hits it around the lip. Game over. the Americans have won. And of course, they're right on the ocean. They all sprint into the ocean to celebrate. Yeah. Which winds the Europeans up as well. It does. I mean... Why not though? Why shouldn't they? Held Erwin's very gracious to Bernhard Lange, which is really worth saying.

21:32He's very, very gracious. The European team are very gracious towards him. Sebi Biosaurus is crying. Of course, he takes it so seriously. Payne Stewart comes over and puts his arm around players and goes, let's go and celebrate our friendship. It's a really good game. And at the closing ceremony, Dan Quayle, who's the vice president, is told by Bernard Gallagher, you know, Britain and Europe had servicemen killed in the Gulf War as well, don't you? Apparently, Quayle are absolutely bewildered. But Dave Sexton and Bernard Gallagher have never been friends since. Bernard Gallagher thought it was over the top.

22:02The whole Steve Pate situation, you know, the whole military hardware. It was just all OTT. But it was it was the start of what we know the Ryder Cup to be today, the war by the shore. Yeah, Bernard Gallagher says it was a turning point for the Ryder Cup quote and not in a good way. But one thing's for sure, this event is now TV dynamite.

22:38The rest of the 90s, interestingly, it's not too over the top, actually. we get to 1999 and we go to Brookline in Boston in the suburbs of Boston I was at this Ryder Cup I was commentating on course so you really are up close and personal and the Europeans play really well Mark James is their captain they're playing really well Ben Crenshaw is the captain of the Americans and on the Saturday evening so before the Sunday singles looks like Europe are going to win they're 10-6 up they need four more points to retain the Ryder Cup because they'd won it in 1997 in Valderrama, the Europeans. And Ben Crenshaw, I remember this very clearly, Saturday night press conference goes, I'm going to leave you all at one thought and I'm going to leave.

23:22I'm a big believer in fate.