Ambush awaited European golfers in Ryder Cup

By Vic Mills

LONDON (JP): With the Ryder Cup beckoning, and golf set to become a team game, albeit for three days, it is worth recalling the events of four years ago and the ambush that awaited the European golfers at Kiawah Island.

But first, a Ryder Cup trivia question. A resident of the southern United States, I have a broad head, powerful jaw and sharp teeth. Spectators around Kiawah Island are asked not to feed me. The green headkeeper suggests a zig-zag pattern at pace should I send more of threat to the European team than course, conditions and opposition combined. What am I?

For those who settled upon alligators -- no points. The correct answer, of course, was the posse of American wives and girlfriends who put paid to the European challenge in September 1991.

There was much to intimidate the visitors at the last U.S. staging of the Ryder Cup -- a hugely partisan crowd; and ocean course built out of marshland and dune; five miles of bunkers or "waste areas"; and water hazards wherein the hazard was not so much the water as that...Alligator Mississipiensis.

While Bernard Gallacher and his team prepared meticulously for the challenge, they completely overlooked the most potent of all threats, that posed by the non-playing partners of the American team.

With tumbling blond hair, rich red lips and long legs, here was major league intimidation. And nothing, but nothing was left to chance.

There was enough jewelry to satisfy all of 5th Avenue, expansive designer shades and oceans of lip gloss and nail varnish.

Credit Gallacher with pluck, most captains would have handed over the trophy there and then.

Confident, attractive, loyal, resolute, this twelve-woman cheer squad covered every inch of spectator walkway, forever eager to clap, shriek, whoop and holler encouragement.

It mattered little that their star spangled outfits were a touch over-the-top, or that those paste-on smiles contained a few too many teeth for the size of mouth. They were to do a job, national pride was at stake and, in common with their partners out on the course, they were going to give it their best shot.

Forceful and determined on the fairways, animated around the greens, observers calculated their worth at a shot on the outward half and a couple more into freshening Atlantic breezes on the back nine.

Selective methods

Indeed, so intimidating their manner, so vital their contribution, one began to question Dick Stockton's selective methods. Had he really taken the top ten in the Order of Merit and added his wild cards? Or simply selected a dozen all-American hellcats and prayed that their husbands or partners could hit a seven iron?

Three days of fierce competitions suggested a combination of both. The American team certainly had its golfers. It had its characters, too. It also had something called a Corey Pavin.

Three days of pressure golf, and Crazy Pavin would have been near the mark. There was also a Chip Beck. Or was that Chip Back? It mattered little, that his name was suggestive of the game was near enough.

So Stockton had his team, but more than that, he had twelve of the most intimidating women in America. This, however, was only the half. Here were women driven by all that was sacred in the "I love Lucy Show" to seek a happy ending, and with it success for their partner and country.

For if the Ryder Cup were to go to the wire, then such strength of character, such single minded resolve, and not forgetting those designers smiles, would surely win the day.

The final act began slowly. The wives, out on the course, waited for their moment. It came in the form of singles victories for Zinger and Pavin, and signaled a sudden outpouring of emotion.

The contest, although a few realized, was already lost. And given the mass demonstration of affection and the heady, confused mix of lip gloss and leggy blondes, it was hardly surprising.

Unaware, then, of the ambush that waited -- the Wild West come East -- European form faltered. With conditions deteriorating -- casual water (the result of tears) on the fairways, discarded matches were lost, or at best, halved.

The visitors, conscious of the unequal odds, settled for defeat and Concorded home.