Ryder Cup 2025: Bethpage Black in 90 seconds
Ryder Cup 2025 heads to Bethpage Black for a dramatic USA vs Europe golf battle in New York.
Trackman
- The 1995 Ryder Cup at Oak Hill Country Club in Pittsford showcased Rochester to a global audience.
- Europe’s team came from behind to narrowly defeat the U.S. team in the final round of play.
- Despite some local protests and initial bad weather, the event was considered a major success for the community.
Golf’s Ryder Cup matches resume this weekend at Bethpage Black on Long Island. They should be special, but surely not as special as the 1995 Ryder Cup at Oak Hill Country Club in Pittsford.
That major event between teams from the U.S. and Europe took place here 30 years ago to this week, from Sept. 22 to Sept. 24, 1995.
The golf was great – Europe came from behind to narrowly win – and so was the attention to Rochester. Indeed, it stands as a special moment in Rochester history, one that showcased the community in a way it hadn’t been showcased before.
People came from thousands of miles away to watch the Cup. They rented homes near the course for hundreds of dollars. Companies spent tons of money on corporate tents at the course.
The press was out in force, print, television and even some internet. And the golf itself was different, as it featured two teams, rather than a lineup of individuals. People could root for a country or a continent, take your pick.
And they could root for Rochester.
“People here have been so friendly. It just wouldn’t happen in England,” Geoffrey Hamilton-Fairley of London said after play had begun.
I started writing about the Ryder Cup in April 1995, five months before the event, highlighting the preparations.
As the Cup got closer, the media coverage picked up, becoming excessive to some people.
“There’s millions of dollars going into the Ryder Cup,” said Sister Grace Miller of the House of Mercy, who, along with others, picketed Ryder events. “We can’t even get food for the hungry.”
Given my assignment, I was there with my notebook when the European team arrived at the Rochester airport on Sept. 18, 1995, on the supersonic Concorde. Thousands had gathered in and around the airport, not so much to greet the golfers, as to greet the big bird.
“Their airtime from London to Rochester had been 3 hours and 35 minutes – less than it takes to play a round of golf,” I wrote, suitably impressed. (Full disclosure: I had never played a round of golf in my life, still haven’t, but my golfing friends let me know how long a round took.)
The Concorde didn’t stay long, leaving around three hours after it landed. But the fact that it had dropped in at all gave fuel to our civic bragging. Take that, Topeka.
On the first day of play, a storm drenched the course, the golfer, and the spectators.
Lanny Wadkins, the captain of the U.S. team, felt our pain.
“The weather’s cold and miserable and nobody likes it,” he said. “I’m disappointed for the people at Oak Hill and in Rochester because they worked so hard to put this thing on the map and make it the best Ryder Cup ever,”
Not to worry. The weather improved, and fortune smiled on the U.S. team, as it led after the first two rounds. Going into the third and final round on Sunday, victory was in sight.
The party-hearty European fans did not seem to fret.
“Win or lose, we booze,” Nick Hill, a spectator from London, England, told me.
Thanks to Philip Walton, the fans who had crossed an ocean to see some golf had plenty to sing about at the end.
“Philip Walton?” I wrote. “Many people at the course, perhaps even most people at the course, did not recognize the 33-year-old Irish golfer, but there he was on the 18th green winning his match against Jay Haas.”
Because he won, his team won, Europe beating the U.S. 14 ½ to 13 ½.
The next day’s Democrat and Chronicle featured a front-page photo by Reed Hoffman of the closing ceremonies. At the end of the row of U.S. golfers, Curtis Strange held his head in his hand.
U.S. fans were disappointed, too, but that didn’t diminish Rochester’s pride in staging the event.
“I think it went better than we anticipated,” said Dr. Bill Robischon, general chairman of the matches and an Oak Hill member, said. “It was better than we dreamed it would be.”
From his home in Geneseo, Livingston County, retired senior editor Jim Memmott writes Remarkable Rochester about who we were, who we are. He can be reached at [email protected] or write Box 274, Geneseo, NY 14454.
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