hat is it about team play that makes for the best shots of one’s career? Whatever it is, you can be sure we will see plenty more of it when the Ryder Cup, golf’s most famous, furious, and routinely fabulous team competition, returns in its 35th iteration this month from the 14th through the 19th at storied Oakland Hills in Michigan.

For those not in the know, the Ryder Cup is a glittering jug that was donated back in 1927 by Samuel Ryder, an eminent and mustachioed English gentleman of tweed, tradition, lots of loot, and a sportsman’s soul. He offered the trophy to whoever won a proposed competition between British and American professionals. In doing so, he declared loftily, “I look upon the Royal and Ancient game as being a powerful moral force that influences the best things in humanity. I trust the effect of this Match will be to influence a cordial, friendly, and peaceful feeling throughout the whole civilized world.” From the first competition in Worcester, Massachusetts, onward, the “Match” has rarely been cordial, friendly, or peaceful. In fact, some of the most boorish, nasty behavior ever to be visited upon our genteel game has occurred during these tense biennial smackdowns. But, as well, there have been select Ryder Cup moments of unsurpassed brilliance— famous shots under pressure, gestures of sportsmanship unparalleled in any other golf competition. If team play has brought out the worst in many, it has brought out the very best in some.

Two years ago, before the Cup matches at The Belfry in Sutton Coldfield, England, AP sportswriter Doug Ferguson asked six of his pressroom confreres—David Davies of the Guardian, Jaime Diaz of GolfWorld, Mark Garrod of the Press Association, John Hopkins of the Times of London, Renton Laidlaw of The Golf Channel, and Michael McDonnell of the Daily Mail—to list the ten greatest Ryder Cup shots ever. Their choices were interesting, and the shots themselves, when considered, are simply amazing.

One shot made all six lists, and it was a miraculous 3-wood struck by Spaniard Seve Ballesteros in 1983. (The Ryder Cup format was changed in 1979 from Britain and Ireland versus the United States to Europe versus the United States.) Coming to the par-5 18th tee in the Sunday singles matches in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, Ballesteros was all-square with Fuzzy Zoeller, and the team competition was equally neck-and-neck.

After hooking his drive into heavy rough, Ballesteros barely advanced the ball and wound up in a bunker at the dogleg. He took out a 3-wood and, from under the trap’s lip and with the wind in his face, launched a mighty 240-yard blast to the edge of the green. Jack Nicklaus, who was looking on as captain of the U.S. side, thought that, considering the situation, it was the greatest golf shot he had ever seen. A chip and a putt later, Ballesteros had halved the hole and the match, and kept Europe’s hopes alive.

Later in the afternoon, America’s Lanny Wadkins arrived at 18 one hole down to Ballesteros’s countryman, Jose Maria Canizares. After two shots Wadkins was still 60 yards from the pin, but he stuck a pitching wedge to within a foot; his birdie won the hole, halved the match, and gave the United States the clinching half-point in its thrilling 14-1/2 to 13-1/2 victory. Nicklaus kissed the divot that had been carved from the fairway by Wadkins’s deft wedge.

The shot by Wadkins was listed by five of six in Ferguson’s 2002 poll, as were two shots from the 1989 singles matches at The Belfry. Europe had won the previous two Ryder Cup matches and the rivalry was, that year, reaching the intensity level it has maintained since. In the first match of the day, Paul Azinger was a hole up on Ballesteros at 18, but hit his drive into the water. Lying two, he bravely took out his 3-wood and smashed the ball 245 yards over two sections of H2O. It landed in a greenside bunker. Now, Ballesteros had to play for par, and in going for it with his approach, he too found water. They halved the hole and Azinger won the match. Later, on the same hole, Irishman Christy O’Connor was still more than 200 yards from the green while Fred Couples was only a 9-iron away after a titanic drive. O’Connor withdrew his 2-iron and turned archer, sending the ball to within four feet of the cup. He won the hole and the match. On this Sunday, none of the 12 singles matches would be halved, but seven of them would be won by only a single hole, and the final score of the match was 14-14, the second tie in Ryder Cup history. In retrospect, the enormity of O’Connor’s shot became clear.

If anyone is the poster boy for how team play can transform a mere mortal into Superplayer, it is Azinger. He has fashioned plenty of fine golf shots in PGA tournament play, but he has hit no fewer than three of the most memorable shots the game has ever seen during the Ryder Cup. They all came on the 18th at The Belfry, and all on a Sunday: that 1989 3-wood; a 1993 approach to six feet that set up a birdie; and his escape from a deep trap two years ago. The afternoon matches were waning, and Europe was tightening the vice. By the time Azinger found himself in the sand, lying two, he was cognizant that if America’s hopes were to stay alive, he had to hole this sucker. Down came the clubhead, up and out flew
the ball—40 feet!—and into the cup. Azinger leaped from the pit like a man possessed. That the United States eventually lost another close contest with Europe does nothing to diminish the heroics of Paul Azinger.

In Ferguson’s survey, four shots received three votes each: Nick Faldo’s approach to four feet on the 18th at Oak Hill in 1995 to beat Curtis Strange, as Europe rallied from 9–7 down to retain the Cup; Corey Pavin’s birdie chip-in during an earlier, alternate shot match that same year; Justin Leonard’s 45-foot putt on the 17th hole at The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts, in 1999 (which set off an unfortunate display, as U.S. players and their entourage stormed the green to celebrate, tromping on the line of Jose Maria Olazabal’s impending putt); and my favorite—the shot that never happened. This famous incident led to what the writer Kenneth Van Kempen called “perhaps the greatest and most gracious tie in sports history.”

The year was 1969, the course was Royal Birkdale, the players in the final pairing were Jack Nicklaus and Tony Jacklin. Each man knew that their match would be decisive. They were dead even on the 18th fairway when Nicklaus, sweating bullets, asked Jacklin how he was feeling. “Bloody petrified” was the honest response. Both men found the green with their approaches; Jacklin was 30 feet away, Nicklaus 15. Jacklin putted to about three feet. Nicklaus just missed, then knocked in his five-foot comebacker. The team score stood 15 and 1/2 to 15 and 1/2. If Jacklin missed, the United States would retain the Cup clear, as Nicklaus’s win would make the final score 16 1/2 to 15 1/2. As it was, Nicklaus picked up not only his own ball but Jacklin’s ball mark. He conceded the putt with a handshake, a smile, and an agreed-upon draw. “I don’t think you would have missed that putt,” said the American. “But under the circumstances, I would never give you the opportunity.”

Team play: It brings out the worst, but also the best. To return to our original question: Why?

It has to be because a golfer, one who spends so much time in isolation, rarely has anyone else to care about, or someone else to back him up. Nicklaus was thinking about Jacklin. Azinger, in the bunker, was thinking about his teammates—those who had already prevailed or failed, and those on the course who were hoping against hope that their next efforts would matter. In the team format, everyone’s trying to make. If you don’t make, your partner might make—but if we all leave ’em short, no one will make. “It’s always like that,” the Swede Jesper Parnevik told Ferguson when they were discussing this precise point. “Your only focus is to hole the putt, hole the shot. That’s why you always see three or four guys hole out from the fairway. That’s why you see crazy putts go in.”

So, then, Ryder Cup Class of 2004: Hit away, swing for the fences, be bold with each putt—come what may!