Europe won the Ryder Cup for the first time on American soil way back in 1987 at Muirfield Village.
Seve Ballesteros led the charge for the Europeans, with the Spaniard galvanising his teammates back in 1983 after a narrow defeat to the United States at the Ryder Cup in Palm Beach.
There have been numerous leading figures for Europe at the biennial competition throughout the years.
Colin Montgomerie played a leadership role for the European Ryder Cup team, but Ballesteros is the man who started it all.
He gave the Europeans the belief that they were actually capable of beating the Americans away from home.
Seve drummed it into his teammates that their time would come very soon, and the Spaniard’s premonition came true in 1987.
During that famous encounter at Muirfield Village, tempers flared between the two sides and unsurprisingly, it was Seve who was at the front and centre of it all.
The Ryder Cup moment produced by Seve Ballesteros which made Curtis Strange mad
During the 1987 Ryder Cup, Ballesteros and his fellow Spaniard Jose Maria Olazabal took on Curtis Strange and Tom Kite in the Friday afternoon four-ball matches.
Seve and Olazabal won the match 2&1 in the end, but it was something that happened during the game which caused huge controversy.
Prior to the 1987 Ryder Cup, the two captains – Jack Nicklaus and Tony Jacklin made an agreement whereby the through lines of putts were to be kept free of footfall.
In four-ball matches, if you face a 20-foot putt and your partner is five-feet away from the hole, but your two opponents have 15-foot putts, you can ask the other half of your partnership to go first.
However, that wasn’t always the case at Muirfield, due to the captain’s agreement.
Strange stepped in on the first hole when Olazabal wanted to hole out from close range, suggesting that he would be standing on his through line.
Ballesteros didn’t take kindly to the American’s protests, shouting at him, ‘does that bother you’?
Seve then proceeded to walk to his ball off the edge of the green before chipping in, right into the middle of the hole.
It was a first-class exhibition of the elite talent the Spaniard possessed.
To add insult to injury for Strange, Seve beat him 2&1 in the singles as Europe ran out as 15-13 winners.
What Curtis Strange said about Seve Ballesteros’ chip-in at the Ryder Cup
In an extract from the book, “Against Them” by Robin McMillan, Strange explained just how infuriating Ballesteros was to play against.
“On the first hole of one match in 1987, I wanted to f***ing kill him. I’m playing with Kite. We’d had our rules meeting the day before. Some of that’s on sportsmanship and courtesy and playing within the rules. Well, to make a long story short, we’d discussed having a ‘through line,’ which means the line of your putt past the hole. You don’t want people putting on it if you miss the previous putt long.
“On the first hole Seve had a chip from just off the green. I had a long putt down the hill and putted it past the hole. Olazabal putted, then wanted to putt out, but I said, ‘Well, wait a minute, wait a minute, you can’t do that. You’re right on my through line.’ Seve came charging up. ‘That bother you?’ he said. ‘That bother you?’ I said, ‘yes, that does bother me.’ And so Seve stomped over to his chip and chipped it right into the back of the hole—then walked off the green pumping his fist at me! And I almost had to applaud him. More power to him. Goddamn, I was so mad I wanted to kill him.“
Strange clearly wasn’t happy, but he had to admire Seve’s brilliance, just like many players were forced to do both before and after that moment at the Ryder Cup in 1987.