The first Ryder Cup was held on June the 4th in 1927

The US Team led by Walter Hagen beat the English Team led by Ted Ray. The venue was Worcester Country Club in Massachusetts in the US and the final score was USA 9½ – GB 2½

The English Team sailed aboard the Aquitania from Southampton to New York, a six-day journey!

Jack AKA “The Golden Bear” is one of golf’s all time ledgends. Born in Columbus Ohio on 21st Jan in 1940 and now living in North Palm Beach Florida, Jack has designed over 210 golf courses worldwide. His company Jack Nicklaus Design has 312 courses open for play and is a major force in golf course design.

Jack’s career was one that help shaped the game of golf into the huge spectator sport that it is today. The Arnold Palmer – Jack Nicklaus rivalry of the 1960’s transfixed a generation of TV viewers and helped popularize Golf as a major spectator sport. He’s professional record is still unbeaten from 1962 – 2003 he won 18 Majors and had 73 official tour victories. He played in six Ryder Cup’s 1969, 1971, 1973, 1975, 1977, and 1981. Of which the US won 5 and tied one. He also captained the US Ryder Cup teams of 1983 and 1987.

Team USA has won the trophy 24 times and held the trophy once through a tie as the incumbant.
Team Europe (in it’s various guises over the years) has one the competition 9 times and held the trophy once through a tie as the incumbant. This means that Team USA have won the competition 68% of the time and Team Europe have won the competition 26% of the time.

If you have a look at the data below you’ll see that the results of the next Ryder Cup Matches are not as much of a foregone conclusion as the 24-9 margin might imply, as 6 of Europes wins have been in the last 10 matches. If you take the 1989 Tie at the Belfry into consideration this means that Team USA have only won 3 of the last 10 matches. (Or 1 of the last 5!). But let’s not write Tiger and Co off just yet…

Note the competition was not held during the course of World War II and was postponed in 2001 because of the attack on the Twin Towers in the US.  There is a full table of results after the fold
The 36th Ryder Cup Matches will be held in Ireland at the K Club in Straffan.

The 36th Ryder Cup Matches in September 2006 will be played on the Arnold Palmer designed North course at the K Club. The course was finished in 1991 on what was then a 330 acre estate with mature woodlands and the river Liffey flowing through it. Arnold Palmer and his right hand man Ed Seay designed and delivered an immaculate parkland course which utilises the river and mature woodlands to specatular effect. The course is unmistakably American in design ethos (which you will either love of hate!). In the early days the course suffered from waterlogging (a function of the relentless Irish rain), spurred on by media sniping the owner Dr. Michael Smurfit wheeled into action and installed a state of the art drainage system and re-built many of the greens. This resulted in a course which is playable in all weathers – bear in mind that doesn’t mean it’s fun for specators in the driving Irish rain – so we better all pray for an Indian summer for Kildare!

The 36th Ryder Cup Matches will take place in Ireland between Friday 22nd and Sunday 24th September 2006. Over the course of three days Team Europe will take on Team USA competing for a total of 28 points and of course the Ryder Cup Trophy (not to mention the even more valuable bragging rights for the next two years)! These points are won over the 3-day event with four foursomes and four fourballs on both Days 1 and 2, and 12 singles matches on Day 3. Read on if you’re not sure what this means.

The 28 Ryder Cup matches involve matchplay matches between the two teams of twelve. Days 1 and 2 consist of 8 foursomes and 8 fourballs. A foursomes match has two teams of two golfers compete against each other. Only a single ball is played per team with each team member taking alternate shots throughout the game. Tee-shots are alternated between the players on a team at each hole. With the foursome format the pairing of the team members is crucial to balance each others strengths and weaknesses and even assign compatible personalities.

The fourball format is similar to the foursomes however each player plays his own ball throughout the match and the winner of each hole is the team who’s golfer had the lowest individual score on each hole. Not all players play in the foursome and fourball matches and the Ryder Cup captain can select any eight players for each of the four rounds of play over these two days.

The final day sees all players on the team partaking in 12 single matchplay matches between two golfers.

The winner of the Ryder Cup Trophy is simply that team with the most points at the end of the final day. If it is a tie then the present cup-holders retain the trophy.

Samuel Ryder was born in Preston Lancashire on 24th March in 1858. He was the son of a Manchester corn merchant and was educated at Manchester University.

Ryder joined the family business and worked for his father in Manchester. He came up with the idea of selling penny seed packets to gardeners, a plan his father had little time for so in 1895 he moved to St Albans in Hertfordshire where he later established the very sucessful Heath and Heather Seed Company.

In 1905 Ryder’s star was on the rise, a very successful businessman, he was elected Mayor of St Albans. Unfortunately his health suffered due to overwork and doctors prescribed fresh air and light exercise as part of the cure. He was encouraged to take up golf. Ryder at first spurned the idea as he was reared on cricket but later relented and engaged the services of Hill (a local professional golfer) to teach him the rudiments of the sport. Having had a taste of golf he then pursued it with a passion. Ryder employed the golf star Abe Mitchell as his exclusive instructor at an annual fee of £1,000. Ryder then undertook a rigorous golf regimen and practised six days a week for a year at his home, Marlborough House.

By age 51, he boasted a six handicap and joined the Verulam Golf Club in St Albans in 1910. Within a year he was elected Captain of the club, and later held the title in 1926 and ‘27. He sponsored a Heath and Heather Tournament in 1923, which was restricted to professionals.

He became so enthusiastic about the game that he agreed to sponsor the Ryder Cup a solid gold trophy for a biennial golf championship between the best of professional golfers in the USA and the UK – this competition is know as the Ryder Cup Matches

Samuel Ryder died on Jan 2nd 1936 and is buried in Hatfield Cemetery.

The top of the trophy is decorated with the figure of a golfer which is the image of Abe Mitchell a contemporary and friend of Samuel Ryder’s.

The idea was that the trophy was to be the prize for a transatlantic competition between the best of American born pro golfers and the best of British pro golfers.

The competition dates back to 1920’s. The first official Ryder Cup was in 1927 when an English merchant named Samuel Ryder donated a gold cup (and his name) to the competition, prior to this there had been several “unofficial” matches in 1921 and again in 1926.

The 1927 Ryder Cup was held in Worcester Country Club in Massachusetts where the USA beat Great Britain in a crushing victory 9-1/2 to 2-1/2.  This original match format was comprised of four foursomes (alternate shot) matches on one day and eight singles matches on the other day, each of 36 holes.

There were no Ryder Cup Matches held between 1939 and 1945 due to World War Two and the Ryder cup was postponed in 2001 as a result of the 9-11 disaster.

The competition has naturally evolved over the years and some of the key changes are as follows:

1961 There was a format change to four 18-hole foursomes matches the morning of the first day, four more foursomes that afternoon, eight 18-hole singles the morning of the second day and eight more singles that afternoon. One point was at stake in each match, so the total number of points was doubled to 24.
1963 There was another format change – fourball (better-ball) matches were added for the first time, increasing the total number of points available to 32.
1973 The GB team was officially expanded to include Ireland and became Great Britain and Ireland
1977 The format was tweaked again, this time with five foursomes on opening day, five four-ball matches on the second day, and 10 singles matches on the final day. This reduced the total points to 20.
1979 The GB team was expanded and became Team Europe
1979 The format was revised to provide four fourball and four foursomes matches the first two days and 12 singles matches on the third day. The total points awarded were 28.

1973