Couples Delivers Decisive Point
Couples approach from bunker on the 18th hole wins match against Price and secures the inaugural Presidents Cup
Last week, our journey through the past explored the short runway that Tim Finchem navigated to plan and produce the inaugural Presidents Cup. You can read that HERE. This week, we take you inside the ropes and explore how those matches played out. Scroll down to learn more.
We lost a couple of great ones in the golf world this week. R.I.P. Ron Green Sr., long-time sports columnist for the Charlotte News and the Charlotte Observer passed away on September 18th, as announced by his son, Ron Green Jr. I spend a lot of time in old newspapers to produce this newsletter and reading Green’s columns and writing is always a joy and a pleasure.
Kathryn Crosby, Bing Crosby’s second wife, and mother to Nathaniel Crosby, winner of the 1981 U.S. Amateur, passed away on September 20, in her home in Hillsboro, CA. Nathaniel took over official host duties of the Bing Crosby National Pro-Am upon his father’s death in 1977, and his mother assisted, spending most of her year organizing the event. In 1985 Ms Crosby severed all ties with the tournament and the PGA TOUR.
Both Ms Crosby and Mr. Green will be missed.
The PGA TOUR took last week off before the Presidents Cup starts this week at Royal Montreal Golf Club. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t any golf going on last week, though. Scroll down as I provide a few of my thoughts, as well as the Clips You Might Have Missed.
We’ve got a question for you to weigh in on with the Tour Backspin Poll. This week’s Music Clip features Weezer doing “Undone - The Sweater Song” on Conan in 1994, and Tour Backspin Goes to The Movies, has the theatrical trailer for “Clerks” also in 1994. Scroll down to listen and watch.
We go old school in the Swing Like a Pro feature with swing sequence photography of Corey Pavin’s swing down-the-line, face-on, and up-the-line. You should be able to figure out the WHAT HOLE IS IT? Presented by Rota Golf this week and then you may just win a golf swag prize pack which includes our new 19th Hole Hot Sauce. Rota Golf has a cool way to map out your bucket list journey of playing the top 100 courses in the U.S. We’ve got some links for you in the Check it Out section and an ad about a long distance ball in a 1994 Vintage Ad. Scroll down to view.
Last week we wanted to know how you compared the Presidents Cup to the Ryder Cup. There were 59% of respondents who think that there is no comparison as the Ryder Cup rules, while 41% love both competions, but they just want them competitive. There were exactly 0% of respondents who thought the Presidents Cup rules.
This past week, the PGA TOUR took the week off. How do you feel about these weeks off? Does the occasional week off on the PGA TOUR schedule enhance the tour, or detract from the tour? Let us know in this week’s Tour Backspin Poll.
We’re playing PGA Pros in High School Trivia in this week’s Tour Backspin Quiz. Scroll down to play.
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Okay, we're on the tee, let's get going.
Enjoy!
Larry Baush
Inaugural Presidents Cup Delivers Exciting Match Play
David Graham, the captain of the International team in the inaugural Presidents Cup match at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Gainesville, VA, received a letter on Friday, September 9th, just one week before the matches were scheduled to begin, that made his heart sink. Greg Norman, one of the players that the event was conceived for, informed his captain that he was unable to play due to health issues.
“It is with great disappointment that I have to withdraw from the Presidents Cup for medical reasons,” Norman wrote in his letter to Graham. “After being involved from the outset with the PGA TOUR and my good friend Nick Price, I truly feel hollow not being with you.”
“Obviously, this is a major disappointment.”
Norman, who was an enthusiastic supporter of the new international match play competition, was under the care of Dr. Richard Andrassy in Houston, TX. Graham announced that Norman was unable to play due to “a very serious hemorrhoid condition,” but Dr. Andrassy clarified the health issue saying that Norman “has a bad case of what in layman’s terms you’d call a prolonged flu.” Norman had recently undergone surgery for hemorrhoids but would have been able to play in the Presidents Cup if it hadn’t been for the flu.
“Obviously, this is a major disappointment,” Graham said.
Tim Finchem, newly appointed as the commissioner of the PGA TOUR, was also disappointed saying, “I wouldn’t want to say that one of the two best players in the world not playing in an event doesn’t have an impact—that’s silly. But we have a lot of great players in the field. This will still be a great competition, unfortunately one played without Greg Norman.”
“He’d been battling cancer, and I thought this might be a good way for Paul to get into the game again in some capacity.”
Finchem put together the Presidents Cup under a very short and tight schedule having announced the event in March. His intention was to create an event that mirrored the Ryder Cup, but for the best international players not eligible to play in the Ryder Cup. At the Masters in April, under the famous big oak, Finchem asked Hale Irwin to captain the U.S. team. Irwin was concerned about the possibility that he would qualify for the team as a player and wouldn’t be able to focus all his attention on being captain.
“I said that I’d love to be the captain, but I’d also equally love to be a player,” Irwin recalled years later. “Can I bring an assistant to help with decisions if I’m playing? We took it to David (Graham) and he didn’t have a problem. My idea was to get Paul Azinger. He’d been battling cancer, and I thought this might be a good way for Paul to get into the game again in some capacity.”
And with that, Azinger was not only named an assistant, he was named a co-captain of the U.S. squad.
Along with Norman, Nick Price, the leading money winner on the PGA TOUR, would give the international team a good chance of beating the team from the United States. With Norman out, those chances were diminished, and Graham would need to readjust his strategies concerning pairings. Norman’s replacement on the team was Bradley Hughes, a 27-year-old Australian who was ranked at 117th in the world on the Sony Rankings.
“It’s going to be harder for us now,” Nick Price told reporters on the grounds of Robert Trent Jones Golf Club on Wednesday, September 14th during practice rounds. “Everyone figured he would be worth two, maybe three, points to us. We’re all going to have to work a little harder.”
Hughes got in his first practice at the course on Wednesday and Price said, “He’s playing very well. You have to remember, in match play, it’s how you play one hole you’re playing now, not what went before or what might come later.”
Asked how his game compared to Norman’s, Hughes said, “We have the same birthday. That’s all. I’m glad to be on the team, but I’m disappointed to replace Greg. He’s the one who got it all (Presidents Cup) started. I’m not going to play as good as he does. I’m just going to do the best I can.”
Friday Four-Ball Matches
Fog on Friday morning delayed the start of the matches for nearly two hours.
Captain Graham chose to throw Hughes in the deep end of the pool by selecting him to partner with Price in the featured four-ball match of the opening day against the U.S. team of Fred Couples and Davis Love III.
“The last two days in practice, he has made more birdies than any other player on my team,” Graham explained. “I think putting him with Nick, he won’t feel like he has to go out and carry anybody.”
Graham and the playing-captain of the U.S. team, Irwin, alternated naming their pairings with the International team choosing first on the odd-numbered matches while the U.S. Team chose first on the even-numbered matches.
The other matches announced were Corey Pavin and Jeff Maggert vs. Steve Elkington, of Australia, and Vijay Singh of Fiji; Jay Haas and Scott Hoch vs. South Africa’s Fulton Allem and David Frost; John Huston and Jim Gallagher vs. Australia’s Craig Perry and Robert Allenby; and Tom Lehman and Phil Mickelson vs. New Zealand’s Frank Nobilo and Australia’s Peter Senior.
Even if Norman had been healthy enough to play, he wouldn’t have made much of difference in the first day’s matches played under sunny skies with temperatures in the 80s and high humidity. The U.S. team swept the morning matches with only one match going the distance. In the feature match, Couples and Love had seven birdies each, and shot a four-ball score of 62, while Price and Hughes shot a 63 in the only match that went the distance. Even a holed out 192-yard, 5-iron shot for eagle at the 454-yard, par-4, 13th hole by Price couldn’t stem the tide of the U.S. team. The eagle pulled the International team to within one, and Price tied up the match with a birdie at the 15th, before Couples turned back the threat with a birdie at the 17th hole and the teams halved the final hole for a 1-up victory for the U.S.
Friday Foursome Matches
In the afternoon foursome matches, the International team was able to win two matches with Nobilo and Allenby defeating Pavin and Maggert, 2 and 1, and Elkington and Singh defeating Mickelson and Lehman, 2 and 1. Love and Gallagher halved their match with Price and McNulty. In the other matches, Hoch and Hass defeated Parry and Tsukasa Wantanabe of Japan, 4 and 3, Irwin and Roberts beat Frost and Allem, 3 and 1. The Internationals won 2 ½ points, and the score stood at 7 ½ for the U.S. and 2 ½ for the Internationals.
“After this morning, we were trying to stop the landslide,” Graham said. “The guys dug deep down just to stay on the course this afternoon. There may be some relevance to the fact that the U.S. team has a wealth of match-play experience. Love and Couples played as good as the game can be played.”
Saturday Four-Ball Matches
Saturday’s weather forecast predicted hot and humid conditions with possible rain in the afternoon. The action on the course was also hot as the International team mounted a charge. In the morning four-ball matches, Allem and McNulty defeated Gallagher and John Huston, 4 and 3, Parry and Hughes defeated Roberts and Lehman, 4 and 3, Watanabe and Singh defeated Haas and Hoch, 3 and 1, while Price and Elkington halved their match with Mickelson and Pavin.
Love and Couples won their match over Nobilo and Allenby, 2-up, to avoid a clean sweep by the Internationals. Exhaustion was setting in before the teams went out to complete 36 holes for the second day in a row. Nick Price was sent back to the hotel by Graham who indicated that the number one player in the world was suffering from heat exhaustion.
“He’s just exhausted,” Graham informed reporters including Don Markus of The Baltimore Sun. “He can’t eat lunch. He’s pale. I think it would be fair to say that he’s felt the pressure of playing in this tournament as the number one player in the world. I think that physically, he’s just worn to the ground.” Price had yet to win a match in the event.
Price’s condition was apparent in the morning match where he and Elkington were playing Mickelson and Pavin. Leading 1-up at the final hole, Price boomed a drive into the fairway, but his approach shot wound up 50-feet from the hole after Mickelson hit his approach to less than two-feet from the cup. The birdie by Mickelson salvaged a halve in the match. The score after the morning matches was 8 ½ points for the U.S. and 5 ½ points for the Internationals.
Saturday Foursome Matches
Fred Couples joined Price on the sidelines for the afternoon foursome matches giving him a chance to rest his balky back. The International team was looking to continue the momentum they established in the morning matches in the afternoon foursome matches and it looked early that they did exactly that.
Frost and Peter Senior won the first match soundly defeating Irwin and Haas, the two oldest players in the event, 6 and 5. Love and Gallagher answered with a lopsided victory of their own in the second match, defeating Nobilo and Allenby, 7 and 5. Singh and Elkington beat Maggert and Huston, 3 and 2 before things got really wild in the last two matches.
Pavin and Roberts birdied four of the last six holes to come from three down to beat Parry and Allem 1-up.
“I’ve played in unbelievable matches, but I don’t think I’ve ever played in one like that,” Pavin said who holed a bunker shot at the par-4, 15th hole. “I was looking at the scoreboard most of the afternoon, and I didn’t like what I saw.”
“[Pavin’s shot] was just like sticking a dagger in those guys.”
The fireworks weren’t over as Mickelson and Lehman had to break open a very tight match against McNulty and Hughes. They made four birdies on the last five holes to win 3 and 2. What looked like it was going to be a 10-10 tie ended up with the U.S. team holding a 12 to 8 lead thanks to the heroics in the final two matches. The fact that both of those matches finished in a drenching rain made the golf exhibited by the U.S. players even more impressive.
“[Pavin’s shot] was just like sticking a dagger in those guys,” Graham said about the holed-out bunker shot. “It looked like 11-9, or 10-all, it looked like getting down to scaring everybody to death because it was going so close. The shot Corey had was perfect.”
“It’ll be nice not to hear alarm go off at 5:30 in the morning. I’m sick of waking up in the dark.”
“It was a fairly straightforward bunker shot,” Pavin explained after his match. “I was definitely thinking about making it. In match play, you think about making shots like that a lot more.”
All the players looked forward to getting a good night’s rest before the final individual 18-hole matches on Sunday.
“Nobody wants to be on the team that loses the first President’s Cup.”
“It’ll be nice not to hear alarm go off at 5:30 in the morning,” Gallagher admitted with a laugh. “I’m sick of waking up in the dark.”
Even though the players might be a little more rested on Sunday, that didn’t mean the pressure would be dialed down.
“Nobody wants to be on the team that loses the first President’s Cup,” Davis Love said at the conclusion of Saturday’s matches.
Sunday Individual Matches
The weather on Sunday was a pleasant 80 degrees with much less humidity. With a full night’s rest, there was great anticipation, and excitement, for Sunday’s play.
“By putting the three up front, I hoped the three matches would be wins and it would snowball—but it kind of did the opposite.”
Hale Irwin, along with his co-captain Paul Azinger, front-loaded the early matches, scheduling Jay Haas, Jim Gallagher, and himself in the first three matches and it worked to perfection as all three won. Haas beat Mark McNulty, 4 and 3, Gallagher also won 4 and 3 playing Tsukasa Watanabe, and Irwin handled Robert Allenby, 1-up.
Peter Senior finally got a point for the International team beating John Huston, 3 and 2, but Jeff Maggert put the 16th point up on the scoreboard for the U.S. team by taking down Bradley Hughes, 2 and 1. The U.S. team only needed one more point to secure the inaugural Presidents Cup. It proved to be a difficult point to secure.
“By putting the three up front, I hoped the three matches would be wins and it would snowball—but it kind of did the opposite,” Irwin later said. “It picked up the International team and they came back stronger. In head-to-head competition, sometimes the hardest thing is to get over the hump, to nail it down. We got to 16 points pretty easily, but we had a difficult time getting it to 17.”
The International team received some surprise moral support when Greg Norman arrived at the course. Visibly thinner, Norman watched the matches that were starting to turn just a little weird. Scott Hoch, who enjoyed a two-hole lead with just three to play, suddenly found himself in a playoff against David Frost.
Playoffs for tied matches was one component of the matches that differentiated the Presidents Cup from the Ryder Cup. Another one was that the two captains put a player’s name in an envelope designated to play in a sudden death playoff should the matches end up in a tie.
“But I didn’t know what was going on with these playoffs.”
Tom Lehman was two holes up after 11 holes and then played the last six holes 3-under-par and still needed to make a 30-foot par putt at the final hole to drop to force a playoff with Vijay Singh. Mickelson barely missed a birdie put of 10-feet at the final hole that would have beaten Fulton Allem, then missed again in sudden death that would have won him the match.
Davis Love III was involved in a tight match with Steve Elkington but couldn’t keep himself from watching the scoreboard.
“I knew in the Ryder Cup format, because of ties, it would have been over, and we would have won,” Love said later. “But I didn’t know what was going on with these playoffs.”
Fred Couples, who trailed by three holes at the turn in his match with Nick Price, made a spectacular turnaround scoring three birdies to arrive all-square at the final hole. His tee shot at the par-4, 18th hole, landed in a fairway bunker left of the fairway. Couples described the lie in the bunker after his match.
“I thought I’d chipped it in. It went where I aimed it, It just didn’t go in.”
“It was plenty ways up in the bunker and I had an uphill lie and the hard sand from the rain made it easier,” he said. “I was trying to hit the back of the green.”
He hit the 147-yard shot to less than two-feet from the cup and Price conceded the putt before surveying his short chip from the fringe that he had to make to force a playoff.
“I thought I’d chipped it in,” Price said. “It went where I aimed it, It just didn’t go in.”
And with that, the cup had been decided. The players in the four playoffs were all informed the matches were won by the U.S. team and each player was awarded a half point as the matches were declared halved. Love won his match against Elkington, 1-up, while Craig Parry defeated Corey Pavin 1-up. The final score was 20-12, but the competition was much closer than the score indicated.
“It’s here to stay. As long as the players stay committed, this will be successful.”
“A great match, with the players performing to the utmost,” declared Graham. “Eight of the 12 pairings went to the last hole, and you couldn’t ask for more.”
“It’s been a great event,” co-captain Azinger declared to John W. Stewart, a staff writer at The Baltimore Sun. “It’s here to stay. As long as the players stay committed, this will be successful.”
Couples finished the matches with a perfect 3-0 record while Davis Love III was the only other undefeated player with a 4-0-1 record. Nick Price, the number one player in the world, was the only player to not win a match going 0-2-2 for the week.
The inaugural Presidents Cup was a success, especially considering the short runway of planning involved. The initial ambivalence of the players gave way to a full buy-in into the new team event. With two years to plan, everyone involved was excited to see what the second Presidents Cup would bring (see this week’s Bonus Story).
Next Week: Larry Mowry wins the 1969 Magnolia Classic
BONUS STORY
In March of 1995, after consulting with Brent Chalmers, the executive director of the South African tour, and with the blessing of PGA TOUR commissioner Tim Finchem, Brian Allen, the executive director of the Australasian tour, asked David Graham to captain the International team in the 1996 Presidents Cup. The matches were scheduled to return to the Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Gainesville, VA.
On Monday, July 15th, ten of the players eligible for the International team met for 2 ½ hours in a conference room at the Grand Hotel in St. Annes, a town in England. All ten players were entered to play in The Open Championship at Royal Lytham that same week. The players included Craig Parry, Robert Allenby, Steve Elkington, Ernie Els, David Frost, Mark McNulty, Frank Nobilo, Greg Norman, and Nick Price. The meeting was overseen by three representatives, one each from the South African, Australasian and the PGA TOUR.
With only one abstention, the players voted to oust Graham as their captain—with only two months to go before the matches. After the meeting, the players agreed to reconvene in two days when Tim Finchem would be arriving. Finchem tried to change their minds, but it was obvious that the players were determined to sack Graham.
“David got off on the wrong foot with the wrong players. The whole nuts and bolts of it is, he’s not a good people person. If something doesn’t go his way, he attacks.”
Once more, Finchem would have to do some fancy footwork, with little time available, to bring off the event. In the first Presidents Cup, Finchem had a very abbreviated schedule to bring the event from conception to the opening shots.
The players were upset with Graham’s leadership citing a lack of communication, or clumsy communications, as a prime reason for the revolt.
“David got off on the wrong foot with the wrong players,” Parry, a close friend of Graham’s told Jaime Diaz of Sports Illustrated for the September 16th, 1996, issue. “The whole nuts and bolts of it is, he’s not a good people person. If something doesn’t go his way, he attacks.”
“I think Greg is the instigator, but I can’t prove it. I know one thing, I’ll never sign another shirt or hat with the shark logo.”
While many of the players had concerns, and some had animosity towards Graham, he was sure that the revolt was led by just one player—Greg Norman.
“I think Greg is the instigator, but I can’t prove it,” Graham said after his dismissal. “I know one thing, I’ll never sign another shirt or hat with the shark logo.”
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PGA TOUR Wrap-Up | A Week Off
The PGA TOUR was off last week, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have some clips for you from the golf world. Like Billy Horschel going birdie-eagle to break Rory McIlroy’s heart, again, in the DP World Tour BMW PGA Championship. It was the second time Horschel won the flagship event and he is the only American to win the event not named Arnold Palmer.
Clips You Might Have Missed
Fitz is not still bitter. No really.
Pablo has a problem with playing from a divot.
Put the hat back on, Phil. No visors.
How fun is this?
Tour Backspin Quiz | Pros In High School
Can you identify these PGA TOUR pros from their high school yearbook photos?
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Swing Like a Pro
Corey Pavin up-the-line, head-on, and down-the-line.
Blind Shot
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Tour Backspin Music Clip
Weezer does “Undone - The Sweater Song” live on Conan O’Brien Show in 1994.
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Here’s how our high school PGA TOUR pros looked in 1994:
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Final Thoughts
It’s kind of funny that Greg Norman has been a pain-in-the-bum, isn’t it?
For the time being, you can only get the 19th Hole Hot Sauce by winning the What Hole Is It? contest. This week’s hole is easy, scroll back up and answer for your chance to win.
Can you think of another sport where a player revolt over a captain/coach could force a change like it did at the 1996 Presidents Cup? I gotta get this week’s Bonus Story to Kyle Porter at “Normal Sport.”