Euro stars out to tame ‘The Monster’

In 1940, Samuel Ryder’s elegant golden chalice was proudly displayed at Oakland Hills.

The United States held the trophy, courtesy of an 8-4 winning margin at Southport & Ainsdale in 1937, and with World War II nearly ten months old, and with the British and Irish Ryder Cup team otherwise occupied, it seemed like a good idea for the United States team to exhibit their world class skills and to raise money for charity.

The seventh edition of the Ryder Cup matches had been scheduled to unfold at the Ponte Vedra Club in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1939 and, as had happened two years earlier when Henry Cotton won the Open Golf Championship, in the week following the match with all the Americans in the field, there was a genuine hope that the Cup would be brought home.

Indeed the first eight places in the British team had been announced with Cotton at the helm as Captain alongside Jimmy Andrews, Dick Burton, Sam King, Alf Padgham, Dai Rees, Charles Whitcombe and Reg Whitcombe.

The remaining places were never filled because on September 3, 1939, war broke out, although 'caps' were still awarded.

Walter Hagen had also been installed as the United States Captain and his team comprised of Vic Ghezzi, Ralph Guldahl, Jimmy Hines, Harold McSpaden, Dick Metz, Byron Nelson, Henry Picard, Paul Runyan, Horton Smith and Sam Snead.

It was decided they should face a 'top-flight' squad of American professionals who had been overlooked in The Ryder Cup selection process.

So Gene Sarazen was made Captain with Tommy Armour, Billy Burke, Harry Cooper, Jimmy Demaret, Ben Hogan, Lawson Little, Ed Oliver, Jimmy Thompson, Al Watrous and Craig Wood in his squad.

The match was billed as 'Hagen's Ryder Cuppers' against 'Sarazen's Challengers.'

The bill of fare on July 16-17, 1940, was made up of a first day of four foursomes played over 36 holes and a second day of eight singles also over 36 holes. Demaret and Hogan birdied their first hole and eventually won by one hole after a classic match against Guldahl and Snead, but Hagen's men won the other three matches to lead 3-1.

The spoils were shared in the singles so 'Hagen's Ryder Cuppers' had won 7-5.

Just for the record The Matches produced more than $10,000 for The Red Cross.

The newspapers gave the event strong support and it became a community enterprise.

The players received railroad fares, a small gift and little else.

Their expenses totaled $1,146.25! For Oakland Hills, The 35th Ryder Cup Matches will mark another milestone in its wonderful history as, of course, will the playing of the 90th US Open Championship on the course in 2008.

It was in 1916 coincidently the same year that the PGA of America was founded that Donald Ross looked out across the rolling, tree-clad parcel of land and declared: "The Lord intended this for a golf links." Ross had already designed the acclaimed No.2 course at Pinehurst, North Carolina, and Norval Hawkins and Joseph Mack, the two men behind the birth of Oakland Hills, had already hired Ross ahead of calling the club's first board meeting.

Hawkins, the first sales Manager for the Ford Motor Company, and Mack, who ran his own printing and advertising business, invited 46 friends and acquaintances to that meeting at the Detroit Athletic Club and determined that there would be 140 chartered members each paying $250 to join.

Hawkins and Mack wanted only the best.

By engaging the services of Ross, who would eventually design more than 100 golf courses in the United States, they knew from the start that they had the right man to make the South Course a true examination and by April 1917, there were 30 men working on the site.

Ross remains one of golf's most revered architects, and the reason is easy to understand at Oakland Hills. His superb routing of the South Course is a legacy of his genius.

Two nine-hole loops, each starting and finishing at the clubhouse, provides a complete test of the game.

The first loop runs clockwise while the second follows almost a figure-of-eight, although some prefer to call it kidney-shaped because the holes do not cross, with the main topographical features being two dramatic ridges that run across the property with a lot of the holes playing off or over one or both. Ross's dictum was simple: "To build each hole in such a manner that it wastes none of the ground at my disposal and takes advantage of every possibility that I can see."

The course opened formally in July 1918, and Walter Hagen, who had already won the 1914 US Open Championship, was taken on not only as the club's first professional his shop was an old chicken coop but also as a public relations man.

Cyril Walker won the first US Open Championship played at Oakland Hills in 1924.

Walker told a group of sportswriters on the eve of the Championship that a "rank outsider" would win, and he was right! He shot 74-74-74-75 for a nine over par total of 297 three ahead of Bobby Jones.

This Championship marked the use of the steel-shafted putter for the first time.

Ralph Guldahl's win in 1937 in the US Open Championship Glenna Collett had won the 1929 Women's Amateur drew record-breaking crowds with record takings, even in depression riddled Michigan.

The first day revenue was reported at $22,000 which was only $4,000 short of the total receipts at Baltusrol one year earlier.

Oakland Hills was remodelled for the 1951 US Open Championship with the deliberate intent of making it the most difficult challenge anywhere. Robert Trent Jones, then just coming into his own as a premier golf architect, was retained to toughen an already acknowledged quality course. With continued advances in clubs and balls it had become clear that the grand old layout that had tested Bobby Jones and company would not test Ben Hogan and the class of the 1950s. When the players arrived at Oakland Hills the course had a new name. William Mullin of the New York World Telegram, had christened it 'The Monster.'

In 1961 Gene Littler arrived with winnings of only $116 from his first five tournaments of the year.

He returned home to California as the US Open Champion after scores of 73-68-72-68 for a one over par 281 one ahead of Bob Goalby and Doug Sanders.

In 1996 US Open returned and was won by American Steve Jones, who scored 74-66-69-69 for a two under par 278 one ahead of Tom Lehman and Davis Love III.

Significantly, an amateur Tiger Woods was in the field. Two months later he had turned professional and by the end of the year he had won twice on the US PGA Tour.

Now "The Monster" awaits the greatest golf show on earth.

This time, of course, it will be the genuine article but as anyone will know who witnessed the exhibition in 1940, or for that matter any of the great Championships to have been played at Oakland Hills, the South Course will provide a wonderful examination for all at the 35th Ryder Cup.