Historic Hazeltine: 2016 Ryder Cup

It’s been ten years since Rory McIlroy and Patrick Reed battled on the fairways of Hazeltine National, but the remnants of that duel still linger. The 2016 Ryder Cup gave golf enthusiasts an unforgettable experience, from the first drive to Ryan Moore’s Cup-clinching par on 18.

As Hazeltine prepares to host the Ryder Cup again in 2029—the first time an American club will host the event twice—we look back on what made the 2016 event so memorable.

The United States team arrived at Hazeltine with eight losses in the previous ten Ryder Cups, three in a row. But few were more painful than the last one, at Medinah Country Club.

Davis Love III’s 2012 squad built a four-point lead, only to watch Europe erase it on the final day. Four years later, the weight of the Miracle at Medinah still fresh in their minds, the PGA of America gave Love a second chance. 

Love, with guidance from a players’ task force, built his 2016 order around a principle he credited to Jack Nicklaus, a two-time U.S. captain: don't stack your strongest players at either end of the lineup. Put two of them out front, two more in the middle, and two at the back. Done right, it builds early momentum and leaves insurance in case the Cup comes down to the last matches on the course.

As fate would have it, he didn’t need much insurance.

Team USA swept the Friday morning foursomes, 4-0, the first clean sweep to open a Ryder Cup since 1975. The galleries were loud and partisan from the first tee shot, following the American players and pushing the volume higher every time a putt dropped.

Europe clawed back on Saturday morning, closing the gap to a single point after the opening session. The Americans answered by winning three of the final four matches on Saturday afternoon, and the U.S. carried a 9½ to 6½ lead into Sunday.

This was not Medinah. The Americans refused to surrender their lead.

With a three-point lead heading into the final day, Love had to guess how European captain Darren Clarke would respond. He bet that Europe would front-load its order to make up ground fast, and Clarke did exactly that: McIlroy went out first, and four rookies landed in the last five spots.

Love answered by sending Patrick Reed out first against McIlroy, matching his most in-form player against Europe's. Jordan Spieth followed at No. 2, against Henrik Stenson.

Spieth, serving as the team’s internal motivator, sent the first text of the morning to his teammates, which read, “Fate whispers to the warrior, ‘You won’t survive the storm.’ The warrior replies, ‘I am the storm.’”

Reed and McIlroy delivered a masterpiece golf fans will talk about for decades.

The two traded birdies through the opening holes. McIlroy edged ahead at the third, then birdied the drivable par-4 fifth. He lost the hole anyway: Reed drove the green, rolled in the eagle putt, and took it right back.

The defining moment came at the par-3 eighth. McIlroy's birdie putt dropped from nearly 60 feet, and he turned to the partisan gallery cupping his ear: "I can't hear you." Reed answered by holing his own putt to halve the hole, and the two players walked to the next tee still level, and still smiling.

Reed closed out one of the greatest singles matches in Ryder Cup history on 18, 1-up. The greater celebration would come moments later.

The Cup itself came down to Ryan Moore, added to the roster as a captain's pick barely a week before the matches began.

Two down against Lee Westwood with three holes to play, Moore eagled the 16th, birdied the 17th, and made par at the last for a 1-up win—clinching the Cup for the Americans with three matches still on the course.

Reed, Rickie Fowler, Brandt Snedeker, and rookie Brooks Koepka all won their singles matches. Phil Mickelson made ten birdies to halve against Sergio Garcia. When the scoring settled, the United States had won, 17 to 11. It was the most decisive Ryder Cup margin for either side since 1981, and the first American win since 2008. The Americans would eclipse their own record five years later, winning 19-9 at the 2021 Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits.

“We did this for our captain,” Spieth said afterward, pointing to Love's redemption four years after Medinah.