First tee brings out nerves for golfers
Golfers feel magnitude of clash between US, Europe at start
SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France — The largest grandstand at Le Golf National rises to the sky so high that one can see, from the top row, the illuminated Eiffel Tower 15 miles in the distance.
It’s the centerpiece of the staging for the 42nd Ryder Cup, a towering structure that features 7,000 seats and looms over the tee box of the first hole and the green of the 18th.
This weekend it serves as an imposing backdrop for one of the most terrifying shots in golf, the nerve-racking tee shot on the first hole of the Ryder Cup. The shot makes hearts race, heads spin, hands shake and knees wobble during this continental clash between the U.S. and Europe.
While one-third of the seats face the 18th green, the remaining portion of the grandstand will deliver a crowd the size of which the first tee has never seen. For example, the first tee at the 2016 Ryder Cup at Hazeltine in Minnesota had a capacity of 1,700. The opening tee shot at Gleneagles in Scotland in 2014 was hit in front of a grandstand seating 2,200.
“Playing a practice round, there was basically no people in it, and I still got goose bumps looking at it and thinking, on Friday, this thing is going to be packed,” Rory McIlroy said.
As in years past, the stands will start filling well before first light for the opening session of fourballs, with fans singing and chanting the time away. And as in years past, it will provide a lifechanging memory for the players tasked with hitting the shot.
It certainly changed McIlroy’s opinion of the Ryder Cup. He didn’t know what all the fuss was about as a rookie in the 2010 Ryder Cup at Celtic Manor in Wales. Then he headed to the first tee on the first day.
“I still thought it was this team event that really doesn’t matter in the big scheme of things,” McIlroy said. “I was more concerned about individual titles and all that. Then I got to the first tee and I realized the magnitude of it all. It just hits you. You try and put your ball on that tee and it takes you a couple times to get it to settle on there.”
Before hitting his first shot in his first Ryder Cup at Valderrama in Spain in 1997, Tiger Woods got into a little squabble with playing partner Mark O’Meara before their opening foursomes match.
“He says, ‘The way the golf course sets up, you should tee off the (oddnumbered holes),’ ” Woods said of his exchange with O’Meara.
“And I said, ‘Well, I kind of like the evens.’ He said, ‘No, no, no. Odds are good for you the way it sets up for us.’ ”
O’Meara then asked Tiger why he wanted evens. Woods replied, “Because you have to hit the first tee shot.’ Then (O’Meara) says, ‘No, you’re hitting the first tee shot.’ ”
“So I listened. He was the vet,” Woods added. “I hit a 2-iron, trapped it down in the fairway, and phew, it was all good.
“There’s nothing like the first tee shot.”
U.S. captain Jim Furyk turned into Superman when he hit the first tee shot in his Ryder Cup debut in 1997.
“I hit 3-wood at Valderrama so far, it might be the longest 3-wood to this day,” Furyk said. “I outdrove everyone in my group by 20 yards, and I was by far the shortest guy in the group, but I was just so jacked up and flushed it. I ripped a draw down the middle, and it went forever. I hit like three less clubs into the green than I had all week. I think I flipped a wedge in there. I was shocked.”
Not much jolts Brooks Koepka, as tough a guy as you’ll ever meet on a golf course, a physically intimidating presence who sweats nothing. Well, except when he hit his first tee shot in a Ryder Cup at Hazeltine.
“It was about as nervous as I could get. Whatever tee height the ball was at, that’s where it was going to stay at,” the three-time major champion said. “There was no way I was going to re-tee because I’m not sure I could have. I was shaking; my legs didn’t feel right.
“It was just so intense. Just look, I’m still getting chills thinking about it. It’s just amazing.”
Patrick Reed said it was hard to breathe because there was “no oxygen” on the first tee at Gleneagles when he
made his Ryder Cup debut in 2014.
“I’ll never forget skying a 3-wood off the tee and barely getting the ball to the fairway and having 3-iron into the green when the rest of the group had 9-iron and wedge,” Reed said. “I ended up tying the hole and that settled me down. I couldn’t wait to get off that tee.
“Now I can’t wait to get to the first tee. You want that adrenaline rush, that energy. You want to feel it. It’s like the NFL teams in the playoffs emerging from the tunnel and the crowd goes crazy.”
Bubba Watson said he gets butterflies on the first tee. He hit his first shot in the 2010 Ryder Cup, but it was in 2012 at Medinah, north of Chicago, when he took the first tee shot to another level.
Watson went all cheerleader and urged the crowd to make some noise as he addressed the ball and then exhorted fans to keep cheering during his swing. The volume reached a fever pitch as Watson crushed his drive.
“I did it in the practice rounds. And then when it came time for the tournament, the guys said I should do it,” Watson said of engaging the crowd. “I somehow manned up and did it.
“It’s the most nerve-racking moment you’ll ever experience on a golf course.”
It’s an experience that is hard to put into words, says Ian Poulter. And he’s been trying to find the right words since he made his debut in the 2004 Ryder Cup at Oakland Hills in Detroit.
“The first tee at the Ryder Cup is probably the most unbelievable golf feeling you could possibly have. I haven’t felt excitement, nerves, adrenaline, pressure, like that ever before,” Poulter said.
“It doesn’t get any easier, but it gets more enjoyable. I don’t think anyone has ever mastered that first tee at the Ryder Cup, but you enjoy it as much as you can.”