Year Winner Memorable moments
1927 USA To golf and marketing, a terrible beauty.
1929 GB GB wins. Henry Cotton the hero.
1931 USA Henry Cotton refuses to share exhibition match money with team. Opts out.
1933 GB "I am the proudest man in the British common wealth of people at this moment" J.H. Taylor, GB captain.
1935 USA GB threatens to pack in competition because US won't name their team for foursomes. British whining about American summers causes matches to be switch to autumn.
1937 USA First away win in Ryder Cup history. Augurs badly.
1947 USA British captain accuses Ben Hogan of using illegal grooves on his clubs. Hogan exonerated.
1949 USA British team caught with illegal grooves on their clubs. Hogan makes the accusation. Over $1,300 dollars worth of food shipped from the US to ration-hit England for the British team. The wives of the players decline the charity. The chaps chow down.
1951 USA Play suspended while the teams go to watch a college football game
1953 USA USA fields weakest team ever. Wins.
1955 USA Hogan and Snead decline to play for US. Players allowed choose size of balls they wish to play with.
1957 GBI "Individually they are pretty nice folks, But get them together and they are about as miserable a bunch of people as you could ever have the misfortune to run into in a supposedly civilised world." US player Tommy Bolt on the Ryder Cup crowd.
1959 USA US win without Arnold Palmer, Ken Venturi, Billy Casper. Yawn
1961 USA New format to help GB and Ireland team after it was realised that over 36 holes, the better golfers won.
1963 USA 3rd day of play added to increase revenue
1965 USA US don't bother to pick Jack Nicklaus who has just won 4 majors in three years.
1967 USA No Nicklaus again. US win. Again.
1968 Tie Eric Brown (GB and Ire. captain) forbids his team from helping rivals look for balls in the rough. Ouch! Nicklaus plays seven years after winning his first major. Format change. Teams increased to 12 so boys won't be so tired. Everyone plays with same size ball after whining from British. 1971 USA Organisers start worrying about public apathy.
1973 USA More changes to format. US wins.
1975 USA "My God, the course is as American as it can be . . . Our guys aren't used to this length." GB & I's Tony Jacklin gets his excuses in early. 1977 USA Format change. Reduced number of matches. Designed to make GB&I more competitive.
1979 USA Format Change. Europe forced to play with GB & I.
1981 USA Ballesteros not selected having won US masters the previous year.
1983 USA Concorde becomes part of the routine for Ryder Cup week.
1985 Eur With four Spaniards and one German on board, Europe win. Fiesta from Salthill to Siberia.
1987 Eur First time a US network bothers to show the com petition live.
1989 Tie Tournament sells out for first time.
1991 USA US captain Dave Stockton gloats over how money his team have made. Sudden inter est of TV company means site of match is switched from La Quinta, California
1993 USA US Captain refuses to autograph menu for Europe captain. Some US players don't want to meet President Clinton. "I won't shake hands with no draft dodger," says Paul Azinger who fails to win a match.
1995 Eur "I deserve what I get but it's nothing to what I'll be doing to myself", Curtis Strange on pending criticism for blowing the thing for the US
1997 Eur If you can make the word Trauma rhyme with Valderamma, as in "the trauma at Valderamma" you can count yourself in the right demographic.