The 25th Ryder Cup Matches were held October 14–16, 1983 at the

PGA National Golf Club PGA National Resort is a resort in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. It has five championship 18-hole golf courses, the most famous of which is "The Champion", which has hosted the 1983 Ryder Cup, the 1987 PGA Championship, the Senior PGA Championship ...

Palm Beach Gardens, Florida Palm Beach Gardens is a city in Palm Beach County in the U.S. state of Florida, 77 miles north of downtown Miami. , the population was 59,182. Palm Beach Gardens is a principal city of the Miami metropolitan area, which was home to an estimated 6 ...

. The United States team won the competition by a score of 14 to 13 points, the closest

Ryder Cup The Ryder Cup is a biennial men's golf competition between teams from Europe and the United States. The competition is contested every two years with the venue alternating between courses in the United States and Europe. The Ryder Cup is named af ...

since the tie in 1969. In their third competition with players from the continent, Europe showed the ability to realistically challenge the Americans. This was the first of four occasions that

Tony Jacklin Anthony Jacklin CBE (born 7 July 1944) is a retired English golfer. He was the most successful British player of his generation, winning two major championships, the 1969 Open Championship and the 1970 U.S. Open. He was also Ryder Cup captain ...

was the European captain and the sole occasion that his side lost. Entering the singles matches on Sunday, the competition was even at 8 points each. Jacklin put his best players out early, while U.S. captain

Jack Nicklaus Jack William Nicklaus (born January 21, 1940), nicknamed The Golden Bear, is a retired American professional golfer and List of golf courses designed by Jack Nicklaus, golf course designer. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest go ...

saved his for last. In the first match,

Seve Ballesteros Severiano Ballesteros Sota (; 9 April 1957 – 7 May 2011) was a Spanish professional golfer, a World No. 1 who was one of the sport's leading figures from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s. A member of a gifted golfing family, he won 90 inte ...

was 3 up at the turn but needed an outstanding 3-wood from a fairway bunker on the final hole to salvage par and force a half with

Fuzzy Zoeller Frank Urban "Fuzzy" Zoeller Jr. (; born November 11, 1951) is an American professional golfer who has won ten PGA Tour events including two major championships. He is one of three golfers to have won the Masters Tournament in his first appearan ...

. With ten matches complete and the score at 13 points each, the outcome depended on the two singles matches remaining on the course, between

José María Cañizares José María Cañizares (born 18 February 1947) is a Spanish golfer. Cañizares was born in Madrid. He turned professional in 1967 and made the top hundred on the European Tour Order of Merit every year from its first season in 1972 through to 19 ...

and

Lanny Wadkins Jerry Lanston "Lanny" Wadkins Jr. (born December 5, 1949) is an American professional golfer. He ranked in the top 10 of the Official World Golf Ranking for 86 weeks from the ranking's debut in 1986 to 1988. Early years Born in Richmond, Virg ...

and

Bernard Gallacher Bernard Gallacher, OBE (born 9 February 1949) is a Scottish professional golfer. Early life and amateur career Gallacher was born in Bathgate, Scotland. He took up golf at the age of eleven. In 1965 he won the Lothians Golf Association Boys C ...

and Tom Watson. The U.S. victory is generally accredited to Wadkins, who hit a wedge to less than three feet (0.9 m) on the par-5 18th hole to win the hole with a birdie and halve his match against Canizares. Gallacher had trailed all day, but Watson bogeyed 16 and was only 1 up with two holes to play. He had another bogey at the par-3 17th, but Gallacher's three-foot putt for bogey missed and ended the match at 2 & 1 and gave the U.S. the winning point. This was the 13th consecutive win at home for the U.S. team, but they would have to wait until the 2021 Ryder Cup to post consecutive home victories. It was also the last victory for the U.S. in the Ryder Cup for eight years, until

1991 File:1991 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Boris Yeltsin, elected as Russia's first president, waves the new flag of Russia after the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, orchestrated by Soviet hardliners; Mount Pinatubo erupts in the Phil ...

Format

The

is a

match play Match play is a scoring system for golf in which a player, or team, earns a point for each hole in which they have bested their opponents; as opposed to stroke play, in which the total number of strokes is counted over one or more rounds of 18 h ...

event, with each match worth one point. The competition format in 1983 was as follows: *Day 1 — 4 foursome (alternate shot) matches in a morning session and 4 four-ball (better ball) matches in an afternoon session *Day 2 — 4 four-ball matches in a morning session and 4 foursome matches in an afternoon session *Day 3 — 12 singles matches With a total of 28 points, 14 points were required to win the Cup. All matches were played to a maximum of 18 holes.

Teams

The American qualification rules remained unchanged from 1981 with 11 of the team being selected from a points list. The final place in the team was allocated to the winner of the 1983 PGA Championship (which finished on August 7), provided he was not in the top 11, in which case the 12th player in the points list would qualify. Qualification based on the points list finished after the

Western Open The Western Open was a professional golf tournament in the United States, for most of its history an event on the PGA Tour. The tournament's founding in 1899 actually pre-dated the start of the Tour, which is generally dated from 1916, the ye ...

on July 3. Tom Watson needed to win the final event to guarantee his place but finished second, lifting him from 14th to 12th place in the points list and pushing

Hale Irwin Hale S. Irwin (born June 3, 1945) is an American professional golfer. He was one of the world's leading golfers from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s. He is one of the few players in history to win three U.S. Opens, becoming the oldest ever U.S. Op ...

out of that position. The PGA Championship was won by

Hal Sutton Hal Evan Sutton (born April 28, 1958) is an American professional golfer, currently playing on the PGA Tour Champions, who achieved 14 victories on the PGA Tour, including a major championship, the 1983 PGA Championship, and the 1983 Tournament ...

with

second. Sutton was only in his third year as a professional and hence ineligible and so Watson retained his place on the team. The European team was chosen entirely from the

1983 European Tour The 1983 European Tour was the 12th official season of golf tournaments known as the PGA European Tour and organised by the Professional Golfers' Association. The season was made up of 27 tournaments counting for the Order of Merit, and some non ...

money list as at the conclusion of the St. Mellion Timeshare TPC on September 18. Prior to the final event 10 of the players had guaranteed their places with

Manuel Piñero Manuel Piñero Sánchez (born 1 September 1952) is a Spanish professional golfer. Piñero was born in Badajoz. He turned professional in 1968 and established himself on the European Tour in the early 1970s. He won nine titles on the Tour, the mo ...

in 11th position and Gordon J. Brand in 12th. Brand made sure of his place with fifth place in the TPC but Piñero was overtaken by Paul Way who finished second to lift him to 11th place in the list.

Friday's matches

''October 14, 1983''

Morning foursomes

Afternoon four-ball

Saturday's matches

''October 15, 1983''

Morning four-ball

Afternoon foursomes

Sunday's singles matches

''October 16, 1983''

Individual player records

Each entry refers to the win–loss–half record of the player. Source:

United States

Europe

Video

2012 Ryder Cup
Ryder Cup Flashback: 1983

References

* *

External links

PGA of America: 1983 Ryder Cup
{{coord, 26.829, -80.141, type:event, display=title Ryder Cup Golf in Florida Sports competitions in Florida Sports in Palm Beach County, Florida