There’s nothing quite like the atmosphere on the first tee at the Ryder Cup, where an arena-like grandstand corrals thousands of screaming fans. On Friday at Bethpage Black, Bryson DeChambeau electrified the crowd by nearly driving the green.
Hitting that first tee shot is one of the most adrenaline-filled moments of a player’s career, and on this week’s episode of Subpar, filmed live in New York City at T-Squared Social, two-time U.S. Ryder Cup team member Jimmy Walker explained to hosts Colt Knost and Drew Stoltz what it was like when he played his first Ryder Cup in 2014 at Gleneagles in Scotland, alongside his partner, Rickie Fowler.
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“We kind of figured out the holes that we liked and didn’t like and I think I might have biased myself towards the second hole,” Walker said with a laugh. “I didn’t want to rip it, no. It was like, is it driver or 3 wood? And I remember Rickie saying, like, it’s driver. I need the biggest face in the bag to hit this shot.”
Walker said that even if he didn’t hit the first tee shot in that match, he could feel the pressure.
“I ended up feeling it later that day,” Walker said. “I mean, it’s something. You walk from the putting green through this tunnel and the music’s goin’, the European crowd is going nuts. They’re singing all their songs and doing the practice swing ‘yippees.’ It is a circus.”
Walker ended up playing all five matches in 2014, and finished with a 1-1-3 record at Gleneagles.
For more from Walker, including what it was like to be part of a winning Ryder Cup team in 2016 at Hazeltine, check out the full episode below.
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Golf.com Editor
As a four-year member of Columbia’s inaugural class of female varsity golfers, Jessica can out-birdie everyone on the masthead. She can out-hustle them in the office, too, where she’s primarily responsible for producing both print and online features, and overseeing major special projects, such as GOLF’s inaugural Style Issue, which debuted in February 2018. Her original interview series, “A Round With,” debuted in November of 2015, and appeared in both in the magazine and in video form on GOLF.com.
