Copa Ryder: «La Guerra en la Costa» de 1991

The War by the Shore, the battle on the beach of 1991. This is the moniker given to the 1991 Ryder Cup even before its inception. It was a claim more suitable for a wrestling match than for a Golf challenge, so much so that the USA vs.

Europe match came to touch levels of competitiveness never seen before. Whether it was the highest or lowest of the levels reached, is still to be decided thirty years later.

Ryder Cup, story

It was the first Ryder Cup to have full television coverage for three days in a spectacular setting such as the Ocean Course on Kiawah Island in South Carolina.

Disputes, accusations of excessive nationalism, deafening cries of spectators and a dramatic ending.
Along with the spectacular game, they were the perfect ingredients for a Saturday primetime airing on NBC in late September.

That media exposure would have increased the interest and ratings of the Ryder Cup in the following years, starting to make people interested in various technical terms never heard until then (dormie, up, down, all-square, etc.).

The event took place shortly after the conflict in the Middle East, patriotic and pro-American sentiment was at its peak throughout the United States.
The Americans, led by Captain Dave Stockton, wanted to emphasize that moment by posing for a military-inspired photo.

Some Team USA players also showed up wearing Desert Storm-inspired camouflage golf caps for the first day of matches. All this fueled the spirits. Europeans said that some of the Americans’ actions bordered on patriotism and jingoism.

Even a local radio, which came into possession of the numbers of European players, fueled a campaign called «wake up the enemy» which lasted throughout the week of the tournament. Nick Faldo said: “that idiot on the radio called me at six in the morning to wake me up.
He didn’t know that we had already been awake since five to prepare for race day, so I told him I was already awake and ended the conversation ”.

In any case, the tone of the 1991 demonstration was clear. From the allegations of violation of the rules between Paul Azinger and Seve Ballesteros, to the withdrawal of Steve Pate, from the singles, due to injury (with consequent automatic half point for both parties), the legitimacy of which was questioned by Team Europe.

Just as in 1969, the entire challenge ended on the last hole of Sunday’s singles. Hale Irwin and Bernhard Langer, who would later become two Hall of Fame stars, took their duel to the eighteenth hole of the famous course designed by Pete and Alice Dye.

(See that Ryder’s memory here) Back-to-back United States in ’85 and ’87 and tied in ’89 hadn’t won since ’83. Impossible to imagine Langer’s tension for that one meter eighty putt to equalize and keep the cup in Europe. He got it wrong and the rest is history