Seve Ballesteros and his outward disdain of the PGA Tour and American players made the Ryder Cup what it is today, but one could argue the event’s astronomical success is actually owed to Jack Nicklaus, who made the fateful suggestion to include continental Europeans in the event in 1977.
That decision rescued the Ryder Cup, an event that nearly died three decades earlier before a little-known golf fan and businessman from Portland named Robert Hudson underwrote the 1947 event after a 10-year hiatus due to World War II.
