Hennessy Cup anyone? How about the Seve Trophy or the Dunhill Cup? For that matter, what about the International Crown?
The first three are men’s professional team events and were fixtures on the tour in Europe (then known as the European Tour now the DP World Tour) and are no more.
I remember the Hennessy Cup with wry affection. When it was held at Ferndown in Dorset, England, I wrote the following line in my report of Saturday’s play: “This is a beautiful golf course. Walk down any hole, shut your eyes and look around you … ” A sub editor in London untangled that sentence for me, saving me from myself and public scorn.
The LPGA’s International Crown, involving teams of four players from eight countries, was last held in South Korea in 2018. “We are committed to finding a way to get it back, as we want these players to have the chance to represent their countries,” Christina Lance, director for tour media at the LPGA, said. “But right now, it’s not on the calendar for the foreseeable future.”
Its absence is missed. “I’d like to have that tournament back if we can,” So Yeon Ru, of South Korea, the winners in 2018, told Golf Digest in September last year. “It was nice to bond with the girls.”
Perrier Pairs? Remember that? Phil Mickelson was one half of the winning team in 1993. The EurAsia Cup? The Joy Cup? The Sumrie Better-Ball? The Double Diamond International? The Royal Trophy, a Europe v Asia team event that was held from 2006 to 2013 for a prize donated by the King of Thailand? All have been and gone. What has happened to team golf? Why has so much of it disappeared from schedules?
“I think some of it is cyclical,” said Ken Schofield, the former chief executive of the European Tour, during whose tenure many of these events took place. “Money is also a part of it. And I think the world ranking points have become such a be all and end all that they have something to do with it. So many tournaments now use them as a requirement for entry that players haven’t the time for team events that don’t carry world ranking points. It is also becoming harder and harder to get top-end golfers to travel, and more expensive.”
“I loved the Dunhill Cup. In the UK as amateurs we play club golf, county golf and then international golf in teams. But it’s different in professional golf. There are not many chances to represent our country. I was proud to do that.”
Jamie Spence
When I run a reel of golfing highlights from the past 40 years through my head these come to mind:
Christy O’Connor Jr’s 2-iron to the 18th hole at the Belfry that won him the hole and the match against a nervous Fred Couples in the 1989 Ryder Cup;
Seeing Nick Faldo prepare for, and execute, the 97-yard wedge shot that set up his one-hole victory against Curtis Strange, contributing a vital point to Europe’s victory on U.S. soil in the 1995 Ryder Cup;
Listening to the first tee singing on the opening morning of any Ryder Cup;
Watching Bernhard Langer miss a short putt at the 1991 Ryder Cup and his agonised body language in the moments immediately following;
And standing 20 yards behind Severiano Ballesteros when he hit a 3-wood from a fairway bunker on the 18th at Palm Beach Gardens to halve his match against Fuzzy Zoeller in the 1983 Ryder Cup. Having rubbed my eyes in disbelief, I then felt the hairs stand up on the back of my neck in admiration of the audacity of the stroke.
These events took place in team events, most of them in a Ryder Cup as it happens, and were played under considerable pressure. Pressure in a football or rugby team is one thing. Golfers, used to playing for themselves, experience a rare stress when in a team event. Watching how they react is part of the attraction of a Ryder Cup.
But you could just as well cite Jim Milligan’s comeback, from 3 down with three holes to play, to halve his match against Jay Sigel at the 1989 Walker Cup, or GB&I’s against-the-odds victories in the 2011 and 2015 Walker Cups.
Ask David Llewellyn, a journeyman European Tour golfer, about pressure. Partnering the much more experienced Ian Woosnam, he played so courageously on the closing holes of the 1987 World Cup that Wales – Wales! – won the event. Or recall Suzann Pettersen holing the winning putt at the 2019 Solheim Cup. Europe required nothing less than victories in each of the last three singles matches out on the course. The Norwegian completed its task with the final putt of both the contest and her professional playing career.
“I loved the Dunhill Cup,” Jamie Spence, the English professional, said of the event in which teams of three men from 16 countries were pitted against one another in a match-play medal format. “In the UK as amateurs we play club golf, county golf and then international golf in teams. But it’s different in professional golf. There are not many chances to represent our country. I was proud to do that. We won it once. We were well looked after and I loved it. You don’t get many chances to represent your country. I still have the sweaters. We got 100 grand (£100,000) each. Wouldn’t mind that now, I can tell you.”
Faldo will remember the Dunhill Cup. His England team were playing Scotland on a foggy afternoon and Faldo, the captain, declined to play his second shot to the 18th at the Old Course on the grounds that he couldn’t see the flagstick clearly enough. When he returned the next morning he saw witty university students standing at the back of the green with a big sign that read: “Hit it here Nick.”
Many team events have been pushed into oblivion for financial and scheduling reasons but without doubt the combined success of the Ryder Cup, since the mid-1980s, and the Solheim Cup, in recent years, has contributed. The inclusion of golf in the Olympic Games in 2016 has brought another team event, albeit it only two players playing individually, into the equation. The Presidents Cup, pitting Americans against an International team of non-Europeans, has struggled to gain its grandeur.
Paul McGinley, both a Ryder Cup player and a winning captain, says that he loves playing in a team almost more than playing for himself. He likes the dynamics of a team and that is perfectly understandable.
Many team events have been pushed into oblivion for financial and scheduling reasons and, without doubt, the combined success of the Ryder Cup, since the mid-’80s, and the Solheim Cup, in recent years, have contributed to the demise of other team events. Without the thrills of the two most famous contests, the short-lived team events have never generated enough excitement and the result is that without those thrills they have not survived.
Top: Sung Hyun Park (left), In-Kyung Kim, In Gee Chun and So Yeon Ryu of South Korea pose with the trophy after winning the 2018 International Crown in Incheon, South Korea. It was the last year the event was held.
E-Mail John