Spanish Armada arrives to rescue Britain and Ireland

DERBY DAYS: THE RYDER CUP- No one man turned the tide of US supremacy on his own, but the decision to include golfers from the continent in the team changed the course of events in the competition's history, writes Damian Cullen

FROM ITS modest beginnings in the 1920s to the clash of patriotism (possibly the only expression of continental patriotism in Europe) the tournament has evolved into, somewhere along the line the Ryder Cup reached a lofty status in the world of sporting rivalries. It was enough for even the Observer newspaper to include it a few years ago in its list of the "10 Greatest Rivalries in the History of Sport".

So where was the turning point? And, more importantly, who did the turning?

While the early Ryder Cup matches were relatively even, and low-profile, the US won 17 out of 18 clashes between 1935 and 1977, the final tournament in that period being a 12½ to 7½ victory at Royal Lytham & St Anne's in Lancashire. The tournament was in crisis, with the Ryder Cup's lack of prestige leading former British Open winner Tom Weiskopf to pass up his spot on the 1977 US team because he wanted to go elk hunting.

While the Britain and Ireland side could console themselves with the fact the 1977 edition witnessed the emergence of a star in Nick Faldo, the Englishman was not the hottest young talent in Europe at the time.

The previous year 19-year-old Severiano Ballesteros finished second in the British Open and claimed the season's European Tour Order of Merit, the first of three years in a row at the head of the rankings for the Spaniard.

During one stretch of 1978, Ballesteros won six consecutive weeks on three continents, and he rounded off the 1970s by claiming his first British Open.

With the Ryder Cup as predictable as a hurling match involving Kilkenny is now - and with the Yanks leaving with the trophy they had held since 1959 - few of the organisers needed convincing that the selection procedures needed to be altered if a saviour were to be found.

Enter Ballesteros (along with compatriot Antonio Garrido in 1979). The Ryder Cup was never to be the same.

The tournament, as we know it today, is one every golfer wants to be involved in - even during elk hunting season. The top American and European golfers spend almost their whole careers thinking selfishly - professional golf demands it. However, for one weekend every two years they are asked to play, not for themselves and for exorbitant prizemoney, but for their team-mates, and for their "country".

While Ballesteros was the crucial factor in altering the players' and the pubic's attitude to the tournament over two decades ago, he couldn't turn the tide away from the western power on his own. The 1985 European team was a formidable side that included, as well as Ballesteros and Faldo, Germany's Bernhard Langer, Ian Woosnam of Wales and the Scotland duo of Sandy Lyle and Sam Torrance.

While Europe were overwhelmed in the first two years of the new US v Europe Ryder Cup - Ballesteros was controversially omitted from the 1981 side - in 1983 in Florida the home side won by just a point - 14½ to 13½.

And so the 1985 Ryder Cup at the Belfry was possibly the first meeting in almost 30 years in which the US were not expected, on both sides of the ocean, to canter to the title. Naturally, the unpredicatability of the outcome, as it still does today, helped elevate the profile of the clash.

But not anything as much as the result did.

The 16½ to 11½ victory by the home side was led by Ballesteros and Manuel Piñero, who played together in both foursomes and both fourballs. They accounted for 4½ points of Europe's total.

And any ideas on the American side that the win may have been merely a blip were truly torched two years later with the first European victory on American soil. At Muirfield Village in Ohio, once again it was the Spaniards who led the way. Ballesteros - this time with José María Olazábal - claimed four points of Europe's two-point winning total of 15.

From huge, boring winning margins by the US, Ballesteros had led a new outfit - with a strange cocktail of patriotism, courage and determination - past the US, home and away.

Ballesteros, of course, has had a famous, bitter and long rivalry with this year's US Ryder Cup captain Paul Azinger. It burst into the open in 1991 at Kiawah Island when they exchanged insults after a row over the type of ball used. Ballesteros famously said the American team "has 11 nice guys . . . and Paul Azinger", with the American calling Ballesteros "the king of gamesmanship".

But even Azinger has recognised how the animosity between the two only increased the interest in the tournament.

"I have regrets, but I think it helped the Ryder Cup in some perverted way," said Azinger. "I think it helped in the States for sure. I don't think people lost respect for me or Seve as a result, but of course there are regrets. It got ugly, but it wasn't all my fault that it got ugly - and it wasn't all Seve's fault. It just got ugly.

"How you can sum it all up is that there is a huge element of patriotism that comes with the Ryder Cup. I'm patriotic and he's patriotic."

Ballesteros was ferociously patriotic during the eight Ryder Cups he played in between 1979 and 1995, accumulating a total of 22½ points - as well as captaining the successful team in 1997 at Valderrama. In fact, he enjoyed it so much, the Seve Trophy, introduced in 2000, is a biennial Ryder Cup-style event that pits teams representing Continental Europe and Britain and Ireland.

However, Europe's recent dominance, winning the last three Ryder Cups, the last two by record margins, may explain why earlier this year the Spaniard commented he hoped the US would win the latest edition.

"I hope the Americans win this year, in all seriousness," he said last May. "I see the Ryder Cup getting very boring because we are beating them so badly. Everybody is losing interest. My heart is always with the Europeans, but my head is with the Americans for the good of the trophy."

Azinger might consider the comments merely gamesmanship.

US v Europe

Ryder Cup, Valhalla, Kentucky.

Friday (1pm Irish time) through to Sunday