Return to Kiawah Island Brings Back Memories of 1991 Ryder Cup
By Tim Letcher
The PGA Championship will be held this week at the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island. And while the focus is on this week’s major championship, golf historians will always remember this site for hosting one of the most hotly contested, and strange, Ryder Cup competitions.
It happened in 1991, when the European Team came to South Carolina with a two-match winning streak. The Euros were favored to win again but the Americans would not go down quietly. Literally.
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The bad blood between the two sides had started in 1989 when Paul Azinger was facing Seve Ballesteros. In their match, Ballesteros tried to replace a damaged ball and Azinger protested.
As luck would have it, the two were in the same foursomes group on Friday at Kiawah. On the seventh hole, Ballesteros noticed that the Americans, Azinger and Chip Beck, had changed the compression on the ball they were using, which was a violation of the rules. Ballesteros accused the Americans of switching at least three times during the match thus far. Azinger denied the accusation.
On Saturday, Ballesteros and Jose Maria Olazabal were paired against Raymond Floyd and Fred Couples. Ballesteros had developed a cough and there was noise, perhaps that cough, during the Americans’ swings. Floyd forcefully told Ballesteros to stop, raising the tensions between the sides.
Another odd thing that happened that week involved Steve Pate. He and other members of the U.S. team were involved in a car accident the day before the match was to begin. Pate sat out all of Friday and played only one match on Saturday.
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On Sunday, it was determined that Pate was injured and unable to play. That forced his match with David Gifford to be halved. It was a decision that drew much scrutiny from the media and from the European side.
The match was tied heading into Sunday’s singles matches, where the U.S. earned six and a half points, aided by Pate’s halved match, to win. While Sunday provided quite a bit of drama, this Ryder Cup will be remembered as one of the most intense competitions in the history of the event.