While Tiger Woods never boasted the strongest record in the Ryder Cup, it still felt extremely significant when a young Jon Rahm beat the 15-time major champion on Sunday in 2018 as Europe secured an emphatic victory at Le Golf National.
It is probably fair to say that the Ryder Cup arena has rarely seen the best of Tiger Woods. While he has won nearly two-thirds of his matches in the Presidents Cup, the 48-year-old has only won just 14.5 points from 37 matches against Europe.
The notion that Woods struggled with playing with a partner was not helped by the very impressive record he has had in singles matches in the Ryder Cup. Woods won on the final day in 1999, 2004, 2006 and 2010. Meanwhile, he took a half point in 2002 and 2012.
With the benefit of hindsight, Jon Rahm‘s win in 2018 was something of a passing of the torch moment, with Rahm going on to become world number one and win two major titles. But the Spaniard was not the first European to beat Woods in a singles match in the Ryder Cup.
That honour went to Constantino Rocca. The Italian was making his final Ryder Cup appearance in 1997 when Europe just about got themselves across the line at Valderrama. Heading into the singles, Seve Ballesteros’ side boasted a 10.5-5.5 lead. However, they would ultimately only get the job done by one point.
When Constantino Rocca managed to triumph against Tiger Woods in the Ryder Cup
Rocca was one of just three Europeans to win a full point that day, beating Woods 4&2. Of course, Woods went into that Ryder Cup as the current Masters champion, having won by 12 shots at Augusta National earlier in the year.
Rocca was actually in the final group with Woods on that Sunday in Georgia. And it seems that that left him with real doubts ahead of their match in Spain.
Speaking to the Evening Standard in 2023, Rocca admitted that he found the prospect of facing Woods extremely daunting.
“I was the only guy on the team who didn’t want to play Tiger,” he said. “I spoke with Seve and Olazabal, they told me to not watch him hit his shots. But he was a big champion. I told them I love seeing Tiger hit the ball, I will watch him!”
Rocca’s other piece of Ryder Cup history
Remarkably, the win over Woods was not Rocca’s only piece of Ryder Cup history. Rocca – who was also the first Italian to play in the event – is one of just six men to have hit a hole in the one in Ryder Cup history, having made one on the sixth hole at Oak Hill in 1995.
It was also in 1995 that Rocca finished second to Jon Daly at The Open Championship after a four-hole play-off. He would end his career on the European Tour with five victories.
Rocca would prove to be the most successful Italian golfer of all-time until Francesco Molinari came along. So perhaps it is somewhat fitting that it was Molinari who earned – albeit in contentious circumstances – the half point against Woods which completed the Miracle at Medinah in 2012.
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