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"Have some ****ing class, Gavrich!"
The late-Saturday dustup between caddie Joe LaCava, Rory McIlroy and members of both 2023 Ryder Cup teams stirred a favorite golf memory from my own thoroughly mediocre playing career.
The above reprimand came from a fellow high school golfer circa 2007. My team had played incredibly that spring day, beating three higher-touted members from our conference - including this salty guy's squad - and shooting our lowest combined score in school history. I wasn't showboating; I was actually walking away from him, but I had raised my fists in celebration as I stepped over a rock on the way to my team's bus. To this day I don't believe my behavior was out-of-bounds, but I do know this: the tension of that brief confrontation - high-school kids' emotions running high over a regular-season golf match - is fun to look back on because it's such a poignant reminder of how fun, and occasionally chippy, team golf can be.
In the adult world, we're more siloed than ever. It's evident in golf, too: driving ranges are increasingly packed with people grinding away at their games with earphones in, blocking out the rest of the world. The receptions when I get paired up with an existing three-ball are sometimes a little frostier than they used to be.
While I love the solitary aspects of golf - especially tournament golf - watching events like the Ryder Cup makes me a little sad that nearly all of the tournaments I currently have access to are individual events. The years I played high school and college golf contain many of my most vivid memories in this great game. That camaraderie and little bit of shared animosity toward rival teams...that's the good stuff, and that's the reason why golf's most exuberant celebrations happen in team events.
The good news is that the shared triumphs and defeats of team golf are not reserved solely for the best players in the world. There are several tournaments, series and even whole clubs devoted to the game's good-natured "Us vs. Them" competitions, waiting for you to take part.
How regular golfers can glimpse the Ryder Cup atmosphere
Team golf is not reserved just for elite amateurs and pros. There are many ways for golfers of any skill level to at least glimpse the shared highs and lows and heightened adversarial aspect that brings a distinct flavor to this form of the game.
My home course, Sandridge Golf Club in Vero Beach, Fla., has held a Ryder Cup-style competition five times since 2016. It sells out quickly each time. Players get their own team uniforms, pros serve as captains and the matches are a good mix of fun and ferocious competition. Sandridge is one of countless courses that commemorates golf's annual team get-togethers with their own local events; your favorite local haunt may well do something similar.
For members of semi-private and private clubs, annual interclub matches are a great way to pair home-club camaraderie and spirited competition with the opportunity to play awesome golf courses in your area. In New Jersey, the Red Hoffman Cup has been played since 2005 and brings together three dozen clubs from the northern part of the state to play several rounds of four-ball matches before whittling the competition down to the best five clubs for a stroke-play finale. This year, Arcola Country Club's team won for the third year in a row, taking home the title in the finals held at Montclair Golf Club.
Whole golf facilities can be oriented around team play. At The Olde Farm, a private club in Bristol, Va., new members are asked to reach into a bag containing two marbles: Blue and Grey. The marble they choose corresponds to the team for which they will compete in club events for the duration of their membership. Different team members are even assigned golf carts with the appropriate color when they arrive to play a casual round.
In Scotland, a quinquennial (i.e. every five years) "Grand Match" is contested between two of the city of Edinburgh's oldest and proudest clubs. The Bruntsfield Links Golfing Society and Royal Burgess Golfing Society's golf courses sit adjacent to one another, with a humble wall and gate separating them. When the Grand Match occurs, the gate between the courses is opened so that the event may be contested over nine holes on each golf course for each match. Dozens of four-ball teams compete in a total-holes-won match format. The event typically involves upwards of 100 players from each club.
You don't need to be a member of a club to enjoy team golf, though. Building on the success of the PGA Junior League team golf concept for kids, the PGA of America rolled out PGA Team Golf in 2023, rebranded from a nationwide team-golf concept called City Tour (the PGA bought City Tour's parent company in 2019). With 25 satellite tours across the country hosting occasional best-ball and scramble events for teams consisting of 2-3 competing pairs, this summer's season-ending championship event brought 172 golfers to compete at Pine Needles and Mid Pines in Southern Pines, N.C.
Buddy trips are also a popular venue for team golf. Another great high school golf memory: when my team took a spring-break trip to Myrtle Beach, S.C., one year, the captains drafted teams-within-the team and during the trip, we played intra-squad matches for points. We even extended the competition to mini-golf one night, and another, whichever team took back more tickets from a visit to an arcade also factored into the trip-long match.
A Ryder Cup-style event during a buddy trip can be a great opportunity to play the style of golf at which Team Europe excels, especially at home: Foursomes. If 36 holes in a single day might not be popular among your group, playing alternate-shot for one of the rounds might take some of the sting out of the next morning's wake-up.
How to *watch* more team golf to keep the Ryder Cup feeling going
The dynamics at play in team sports are part of why the Ryder Cup and Solheim Cup are wonderful - so compelling, in fact, that we feel somewhat empty when they're over.
Luckily, NBC Sports and Golf Channel are broadcasting more team golf than ever before, in the form of several college team events, capped off by the NCAA Championships. Here's the full fall 2023 slate:
Sept. 4-6: Folds of Honor Collegiate at American Dunes Golf Club (Grand Haven, Mich.)
Oct. 2-4: Blessings Collegiate Invitational at Blessings Golf Club (Fayetteville, Ark.)
Oct. 9-11: Jackson T. Stephens Cup at Trinity Forest Golf Club (Dallas, Texas)
Oct. 24-26: St. Andrews Links Collegiate at the Old and Jubilee Courses (St. Andrews, Scotland)
Oct. 30-Nov. 1: East Lake Cup at Capital City Club (Woodstock, Ga.)
Nov. 13-15: Showcase at Cedar Crest at Cedar Crest Golf Course (Dallas, Texas)
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