Many golf fans fear the matches at Bethpage in 2025 could co-habit with Kiawah Island and Brookline in the Ryder Cup house of horrors.
The 1991 and 1999 editions of the Europe-USA dust-up are remembered for knife-edge tension but also the animosity of the crowds.
The former was known as a war and the latter nearly caused one in Boston when Justin Leonard infamously made a long putt that sunk Europe who’d led by four points before the final-round singles.
Raucous US celebrations after Leonard’s heroics caused widespread resentment in some European quarters and ill-feeling with the away players built at Brookline during that Sunday from heckling and abuse. It was a week that personified Colin Montgomerie’s relationship with the US crowd for portions of his Ryder Cup career.
“It’s part and parcel of the event. It’s enigmatic. It’s iconic in golf terms. It’s so old and has meant so much for so long that it spills over into the fans, and they can get one way or the other,” said David Feherty, a one-time European Ryder Cupper and now a lead broadcast analyst for LIV Golf.
“Generally speaking, though, it’s a great atmosphere at any Ryder Cup. In New York, those fans are out of their minds. And in Boston, when everyone was yelling at Colin Montgomerie – the Mrs Doubtfire thing and ‘Show us your tits’.
“Monty’s out there bless him, he looks like a ruptured sofa.”
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David Feherty: Ryder Cup 1991 was the ‘most nervous I’ve ever been on the golf course’
Montgomerie, an eight-time winner of the old European Tour’s Order of Merit and a former World No.2, was an outstanding Ryder Cup player across his eight appearances for Team Europe, earning 23.5 points and then captaining his side to glory at the 2010 matches in Wales.
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He served the continent with distinction and his status as one of the world’s best players was always rubberstamped when the foes from either side of the pond pegged it up under match play conditions.
Unlikely as it might be, Montgomerie could take solace in the idea that US fans targeted him for his talismanic presence in the blue and gold dressing room. Alternatively, his short fuse and tendency to bite back made him an easy bear to poke. In 1999, his father had to leave the golf course because he couldn’t bear to hear his son take more abuse.
When Leonard secured a half with Jose Maria Olazabal and clinched the winning Ryder Cup point, Montgomerie was still on the course in his match with US Open champion Payne Stewart. Stewart, who tragically died in a jet crash one month later, conceded the Scotsman’s putt on the 18th hole and handed him the match to essentially make up for the grief he’d received on the previous 17.
“He had the thinnest skin of all the guys out there,” Feherty said about Monty. “But it was one of the great Ryder Cup moments when Payne gave him a point – which no player would do under normal circumstances. But he felt for Monty, and it was one of the great acts of sportsmanship from one of the great sportsmen in the game.”
Feherty competed in similar conditions eight years earlier at Kiawah in South Carolina with Montgomerie. This was his first and only Ryder Cup start and like Montgomerie in ’99, he beat Stewart in the singles matches having earned a half point alongside Sam Torrance in the Friday fourballs against Lanny Wadkins and Mark O’Meara.
During this Ryder Cup, several contentious episodes involving Seve Ballesteros occurred, including when the Spaniard accused Paul Azinger and Chip Beck of changing the compression of their balls in the Friday foursomes. In the Saturday foursomes, US player Raymond Floyd threatened Ballesteros after he supposedly developed a cough during his opponent’s backswing.
Bad blood also formed when the US captain Dave Stockton chose to play Steve Pate in the Saturday fourballs despite having bruised ribs from a pre-tournament caravan crash. He couldn’t play in his singles match with David Gilford so it was called a half, which irked the Europeans and poured fuel on the week-long fire.
A deliberate ploy by captain Stockton to salvage a half point they might not’ve earned if Pate played – who knows? Another case of alleged gamesmanship cropped up in the local radio in South Carolina, as Feherty recalled.
“The Ryder Cup is the high temple of stress. You’ve got your own ball and your own thing to worry about but there are also 11 other people in the world, never mind the continent, relying on you to perform at your best. For me, it was certainly the most nervous I’ve ever been on the golf course,” Feherty said, recalling the 1991 Ryder Cup.
“It’s part and parcel of the event. I remember in 1991, the local radio station had a feature early in the morning called ‘Wake up the enemy’ as they had discovered some of our phone numbers and they knew where we were staying.
“The phone would ring at 4.30/5 in the morning and all of a sudden, you’d find yourself on the radio if you answered it. I was out running at that stage, I was up so early, I ran on the beach every morning at Kiawah Island. It got a few of the guys.”
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Whether the dark arts were deliberate or not, Europe lost the 1991 Ryder Cup after Bernhard Langer halved with Hale Irwin in the decisive singles match. A missed putt to Langer’s agony on the 18th hole has become iconic footage in the event’s history.
Bethpage 2025 will create highlight reel moments of its own, hopefully a product of action inside the ropes and not outside.
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What is your favourite Colin Montgomerie Ryder Cup moment? How much of the Colin Montgomerie Ryder Cup action do you remember from 1999? Tell us on X!
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