The Irishman has opened up on what it was like to play against the golf icon in the Ryder Cup during the early days of his career, when those outside of America weren’t quite aware of his game
Padraig Harrington says that every European golfer wanted to play Tiger Woods at the Ryder Cup
Padraig Harrington has confessed how every European player wanted to play Tiger Woods at the 1997 Ryder Cup because they didn’t realize “how good he was back then”.
The Irishman claims that those outside of America were unaware of the golf icon’s talents by the time they took the course at Valderrama, despite Woods having already broken through on the PGA Tour and won that year’s Masters.
Woods, who rejected the chance to become the United States Ryder Cup captain at Bethpage Black this year, is reportedly in line to captain the U.S. side in 2027, although nothing is set in stone as yet. It comes as his son, Charlie, is on the cusp of securing a spot on the U.S. Junior Ryder Cup team for the first time.
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Should Woods be named as a captain in two years’ time, it will be his ninth Ryder Cup. The 15-time major champion has played in eight tournaments spanning more than 20 years, but hasn’t featured since 2018 and has only been on the winning side once.
The first of those appearances came in 1997, when he already had six PGA Tour wins under his belt, yet he was still very much a fledgling on the golf scene. This, according to Harrington, made him a favorable opponent to those representing Team Europe.
“Every time anybody played against Tiger at the Ryder Cup, it was a no-lose situation for them. If they won the match it was huge for the team, if they lost the match that was expected,” the Irishman told The Sky Sports Golf Podcast.
Woods was still relatively new on the golfing scene when he featured at the 1997 Ryder Cup
“People always wanted to get their chance against Tiger, they didn’t say it out publicly like Stephen Ames back in the day, you just kept your head down, went out there and hoped it worked out. It was big for the team to try and beat him.”
However, what Woods’ opponents didn’t realize is just how good he actually was. For those outside of the U.S., Woods still wasn’t quite a big name, and that naivety eventually came back to haunt them.
“We didn’t realise how good Tiger Woods was back then, this side of the water, and nobody could have imagined what he went on to do at that stage,” Harrington said.
Ironically, however, Woods hasn’t enjoyed the same success in the Ryder Cup as he has elsewhere in his career. As aforementioned, he’s won the tournament with the U.S. team on just one occasion (1999), and has won nowhere near as many matches as he would have liked to.
Woods’ sole Ryder Cup victory with the U.S. came in 1999
Of his 37 matches played at the Ryder Cup, Woods has won just 13, while he has three halves. Despite being arguably the best golfer to ever live, he usually struggles when competing as part of a team.
The 49-year-old seems to have always found it difficult to form strong partnerships with his fellow American players, which all came to a head in 2004 with his doomed partnership with Phil Mickelson at the Ryder Cup at Oakland Hills.
But with 82 PGA Tour wins and 15 major titles to his name, he has proven that playing his own ball is where he truly thrives, and is unlikely to have given any of them up for better success at the Ryder Cup.
