Saturday saw much-improved conditions

There’s no doubt at breakfast time in the magnificent Rudding Park Hotel on the Saturday morning Team South were looking almost resigned to the fact that the Cup was not coming back down the A1. After a decent display in the Friday morning fourballs, where 3 or 4 missed short putts in the closing holes had them going in 4-2 down instead of level or better, the pairings in the afternoon foursomes, which on paper looked spot on, simply didn’t work out. Captain Jimmy Curley lead from the front, inspiring the Northern side to a rampaging 5-1 win and putting them firmly on course to retain the Cup with an nigh-on unassailable 9-3 lead.

A relaxed northern contingent

The South were really now playing the Singles only for pride with the home team needing just 3 points from a possible 12 to win. Captain Wallis sent out his strongest players first in the hope that early points might start a ‘Stars and Stripes’ style collapse and indeed, before the last match involving Jimmy Curley and Paul Rich had reached the 1st green, the early news was that the opening 3 or 4 matches were already going decisively in South’s favour – for a few brief minutes a remarkable comeback might almost have looked on the cards, but in truth it never got better than that for the visitors.

A brilliant and vital match in the middle order of play developed between South captain Mark Wallis and northern Ryder Cup stalwart Peter Forster. Two pars each saw the match level as they went to the short par 3 5th where a bit of a an incident was to occur. Wallis, watching his players coming on to the 4th green, didn’t realise the 5th  had cleared and when Forster was virtually on his back swing shouted encouragement to one of his team –  Forster, most definitely disturbed, promptly played a terrible shot but amazingly passed no comment. After hitting one of his best shots of the day to within 10 ft, with ‘Foz’ taking another two shots to even get on,  Wallis sportingly gave Forster his 20ft putt and contrived to 3-putt himself to call the hole a halve. Forster quickly shook Captain Wallis’s hand and would later describe the moment as one of the most sporting actions he had seen in golf. Unfortunately for Wallis however this incident had clearly played on him mentally and he lost 6 of the next 7 holes – though it must be said that Forster was playing some magnificent golf and birdied the stupendously hard par 3 11th to go 5 up with 7 to play. Despite some good play Wallis was ultimately beaten (for the first time in Ryder Cup singles) 5 & 4, with Forster a magnificent 2 over par through the 14 holes.

A disheartened Wallis

Alongside this match the contest between North’s Rick Oakes (who was to finish as the event’s best player) and John Clements proved a total mis-match as Oakes, playing off a seemingly generous mark of 15, was only 1 over par by the 9th hole and 6 up on the southern rookie. He then took holes 10 and 11 in par to finish the match on the 11th green, 8 & 7. The last nail in the coffin for South actually came one hole before this, as North’s giant hitting Steve Tattersfield was shaking Paul Soanes’ hand on the 10th green for an incredible 9 & 8 victory – not much blame could be attached to Soanes though, as another Northern player had played inspired golf – ‘Tatt’, an 11 handicapper, was only 1 over par for his round at that point.

The players in these two groups then all knew for certain that the Ryder Cup was definitely in Northern hands with these 3 points in the bag. The early demolition jobs performed by the South’s best players – Damian Thorngate, who beat Joe Curley 9 & 8; a back-to-form Kevin Ulla, who gave Graham Copley a golf lesson in winning 7 & 6; and the ever-reliable vice captain Gavin Whitworth who destroyed the unbeaten Cup record of Ady Clough in an 8 & 7 win – were no longer of importance, except of course to the individuals themselves and naturally to team pride.

Bell looks askance at play in the Mountain-Moyle hackathon

To round up the other matches: Mark Wallis (North) beat the South’s popular rookie Jim Holliday 3 & 2, with Holliday’s lack of recent practice eventually taking its toll at the end of a battling debut showing. In what had on paper looked like one of the ties of the day, both Ben Moyle and Darren Mountain failed to produce anything like their best golf and South’s Moyle took a scrappy match on the 17th, 2 & 1. David Bell tried hard to beat the North’s Phil Lister but some steady and relentless golf from Lister paved the way for a 6 & 5 victory there. South’s Martin Johnstone, who had emerged pointless on the Friday despite playing some very good golf – and had declared that somebody was going to ‘get it’ in the singles – was proved correct as he beat the North’s Steve Hardwick 3 & 1, with Hardwick having to play some excellent golf even to salvage that result.

The last fourball trailed in with the overall result already decided and widely known but there were still two good individual fights to be decided. The South’s Paul Ephremsen was unlucky to meet another well-handicapped Northerner in Jack Horner who was too solid for Paul and took the match 4 & 2. While the last match of the event went right down to the 17th where the South’s Paul Rich (having had a good first Ryder Cup) got the better of the the home captain Jimmy Curley in a tight game, 2 &1, Jimmy losing the battle but certainly winning the war.

So the end result of the singles was a 6-6 draw, giving Captain Wallis some small consolation, but he and his team know the Cup was lost on the Friday afternoon play. The North, victorious yet again, were perhaps slightly flattered by the 15-9 scoreline but overall there is no doubt they were superbly captained by Curley and thoroughly deserved their win.

The victorious North