The Best Five Ryder Cup clashes

The Ryder Cup is so hotly contested that even its humble beginning is the subject of debate.

One side has the president of Inverness Club in Ohio as the first to raise the idea of a match between professionals from America and Britain. Most historians lean toward Samuel Ryder, the wealthy English seed merchant, as helping to organize matches at Wentworth in 1926 at a time when Americans were coming over for British Open qualifying. As the story goes, Ryder promised a cup to the winner - even though a cup was never awarded. But ever since continental Europe was added in 1979, the Ryder Cup mostly has lived up to its reputation as the biggest spectacle in golf.