Every Ryder Cup, every captain has an extremely uncomfortable assignment: he has to choose the golfer in his team, he trusts the least.
Enter the “envelope rule”.
Starting with the Ryder Cup of 1979, every captain was given the task of placing the name of one player in a sealed envelope to be opened in an emergency. The theory was this: if someone was injured in one team during the competition, that team should not be punished. Instead, the other team would choose a player to essentially keep the last singles session out, would result their non-match in a half-point for each team and the rest of each team would continue in the fight.
What makes the work so painful is the strategy behind it. Because you choose a player to sit out singles, you choose the man whose contributions you look at the least. It is no surprise that some captains have said it is their least favorite part of the work.
Curtis Strange described the property In an AP story: “These guys are becoming family. And it’s like telling one of them that you don’t love them that much.”
Because it is such a sensitive process, the content of every envelope remains secret; This is a burglary in the situation. So we usually don’t see the names, and if they are not used, the envelopes are sent back to the captains or, in at least one case, burned. But there were back-to-back Ryder cups where we found out.
1991: Steve Pate’s Auto -accident
At Kiawah Island in 1991, the event became so intensely known as the ‘War on the Shore’, a car accident in the early week in which various members of the American team Ryder Cup -smokie left Steve Pate behind with gourmet ribs and a trip to the hospital. Pate was the first three sessions for us, Captain Dave Stockton sent him in the four-ball sessions on Saturday afternoon, where he and Corey Pavin 2 and 1 lost to Bernhard Longer and Colin Montgomerie and he aggravated his injuries.
“Everything went on my left,” he said Golf week. “I exhausted the round, but I knew I was ready for the week.”
But before Sunday’s singles matches, in which Pate was planned to compete against European legend Seve Ballesteros, Stockton announced that Pate was too wounded. He would later explain that he could not get Sand Wedge further than 40 meters and had no chance.
After Stockton had made the call, Team Europe was forced to deny his envelope, so that the name David Gilford was unveiled, a 26-year-old Rookie who had lost his first two partner matches 4 and 2 and then 7 and 6.
The move was controversial at the time. “They certainly did it to get half a point,” Gilford said, frustrated to be denied the chance to accept Wayne Levi. And Montgomerie added doubts itself.
“We thought it was fish -like,” he said. “Injuries don’t get worse at night.”
1993: Sam Torrance’s
In 1993 the European steadfast Sam Torrance was unable to go on Sunday and suffered from an infected toe. In response, the Americans had to call their player to sit outside, and it came from an unexpected place: Lanny Wadkins, one of the most successful Ryder -Cuppers of all time, applied for the place and let our captain Tom Watson van de Haak.
“I was the choice of a captain,” said Wadkins by way of explanation. “The other boys have earned their way to the team with two years of great game. I have now played in eight Ryder Cups and I don’t know how many matches, and I would like to take away someone from the experience.”
Wadkins’ decision seemed to have a stimulating effect for the Americans. Before they left singles in Sunday, Watson Wadkins left the room before they speech the rest of the team.
“Every match today,” he said, “has a little Lanny Wadkins in it. If your game gets a bit too heavy for you, think of Lanny Wadkins and what he did for you.”
After Davis Love III helled a putt on 18 to seal his victory over Constantino Rocca, Wadkins was the man he first sought; “That putt was for you,” he said.
That is the last time the US won a road Ryder Cup.
2009 Presidents Cup: Fred Paren ‘Tiger Prank
This is worth seeing: Fred pairs who played the envelope he played on Tiger Woods and the rest of the American team he played. This was not the Ryder Cup; Couples are captain of the winning team on the Presidents Cup 2009. But it is the same idea …
“At the beginning of the week,” said couples, “in the case of injury, put a name in an envelope. I am the only man in the room with [opposing captain Greg] Norman. He uses a name, I stopped a name and we give them to the chief officer Steve Carman. Anyway, as the story goes, we’ll continue and we’ll continue and we’ll win on Sunday evening.
‘Steve Carman comes in and he has to give the envelope back to the captain. We are in the Hootin ‘and Hollerin’ room. He pulls me aside and I know what he is going to say: ‘Here is your envelope. “I said,” Why don’t you open it to everyone and do you read the name in it? “
“So he tears it open and he reads it and it is Tiger Woods. The whole room stopped. They thought I was such a clown that I put Tiger Woods in it if the man who would not play on Sunday in the event of an injury.
“So I didn’t tell the story for two full years,” Pairen continued. “So we released the envelope in one way or another and I took the name out of it. It was someone who was one [captain’s] Choose, and I put the name of Tiger in there. He texted me for weeks: “Guy, you have the biggest balls of everyone I’ve ever seen.”
“I went:” You know what? Why wouldn’t you do your name in it. I thought I would generate things. “So that went for years.
Here you hope, for the players and captains, that everyone stays healthy.
But we would learn something interesting if they didn’t.
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