18 reasons why I hate the Ryder Cup
Don’t believe the hype, this weekend’s golf extravaganza at the K Club promises to be nothing short of nauseating.
- Barry Glendenning in the Guardian
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The K Club. Staging the Ryder Cup in Ireland and not playing it on a links course is like bringing terminally ill children to Disneyland, then forbidding them from meeting giant mice. A small piece of Ireland that will be forever American, the K Club is a charmless, exclusive, expensive, pretentious monument to the enormous ego of its owner, “Dr” Michael Smurfit. Not only is the K Club not among Ireland’s top 10 golf courses, it isn’t even among Ireland’s top 10 landlocked golf courses.
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The players. Vaughan Taylor, Robert Karlsson, JJ Henry, Zach Johnson, David Howell, Brett Wetterich and Henrik Stenson are all playing this weekend. Retief Goosen, Michael Campbell, Vijay Singh, Mike Weir and Geoff Ogilvy aren’t. If Israel’s football team can take their chance in the European Championships, why the devil can’t Ernie Els take his in the Ryder Cup?
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The lack of prize money. Playing for nothing more than prestige and a $100 trophy means certain players have little or no motivation to do well. Unconvinced? Four years ago Tiger Woods said he could “think of a million reasons” why he’d rather win the American Express Championship at Mount Juliet than the Ryder Cup at The Belfry. He didn’t really need the cash back then either.
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The Yanks’ dress-sense. This year, the battle fatigues and camouflage hats of Kiawah Island have been eschewed in favour of totally predictable Oh Begorrah tweed. Why not go the whole hog and play with knobbly sticks instead of five-irons?
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The captains. What are they for? A monkey could skipper a Ryder Cup team. After all, the two teams pretty much pick themselves, while anyone with a passing interest in golf could have done the American pairings better than Hal Sutton last time round. After that the captains are more of a hindrance than a help. Remember Seve driving around the course on a buggy telling professional golfers at the top of their game what shot to hit and with what club? You can bet your last fiver the players he was driving insane do.
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The nationalism. If we’re all pulling together against the Yanks under that big blue flag with the gold stars on it, why did Paul McGinley drape a tricolour round his shoulders shortly after sinking the winning putt at The Belfry?
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The rip-off culture. Taxi drivers, hoteliers, shopkeepers and restaurateurs in and around Dublin will be sexually aroused at the prospect of all the money they’re going to make overcharging well-to-do folk in check trousers and bobble hats this week. If Sky want to show us genuine, no-holds-barred Ryder Cup competition, they should point their cameras at the hucksters and gombeen men as they jostle to get their snouts in the trough. Ireland of the welcomes indeed.
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The hype. If ever a sporting contest was built on hype over substance, this is it. Well, apart from Grand Slam Sunday the other day, obviously. And whatever’s on the weekend after next. Golf is no more a team sport than boxing is, while Europe is no more an actual team than the Allied forces in Iraq. But for one weekend every two years, Sky have decided it is, so we’re forced to enter into the spirit of things. Greppa och slitt up den, Henrik!
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The bad comb-overs. You haven’t seen a competitive golf course scramble until you’ve revelled in the unedifying spectacle of several dozen Irish politicians climbing over each other to get in the frame of a photograph featuring Tiger Woods holding a pint of porter (or “the black stuff”, as it shall be dutifully referred to with monotonous regularity by all British media outlets for the rest of the week). Remember when Charles Haughey helped Stephen Roche win the Tour de France? Or when Bertie Ahern tried to coax Roy Keane back to the 2002 World Cup? You ain’t seen nothing yet.
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The lies. Speaking of politicians, when it was announced that the Ryder Cup would be held at the K Club, the Irish government promised to do everything in their power to make it free to air, what it being the most important thing to happen in the country since Pope John Paul kissed the tarmac of Dublin airport in 1981. They didn’t.
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The wives. The fact that most of us could pick Amy Mickelson or Elin Nordgren out of a police line-up if we had to, but wouldn’t recognise several of the American players if they threatened us with a nine-iron says it all.
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The Johnny Come Latelys. Every news writer, profile writer, fashion writer, travel writer, business writer, leader writer, wishy-washy instantly-forgettable-feature writer, gossip writer, showbiz writer and TV writer will have something to say about the Ryder Cup circus in the week ahead. Where were you when we were reporting on the halfway cut of the Deutsche Bank Players’ Championship? Eh?
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The fact that it’s being reported as the most important sporting event ever to be staged in Ireland. If you include the Irish Derby, it’s not even the most important sporting event ever to be staged in County Kildare. Anyone who wants to see supremely skilful teams doing their thing free of charge in front of massive crowds in the Emerald Isle should attend an All Ireland hurling or Gaelic football final. We’ve been staging annually for over a century - the fact that the posh Pringle set aren’t interested in them doesn’t make them any less significant.
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The global TV audience of one billion that countless Ryder Cup cheerleaders keep alluding to, conveniently forgetting to mention that’s merely the potential audience. The Olympic opening ceremony gets bigger audiences than the Ryder Cup.
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The Boys’ Club Bingo. Tick a box whenever the camera pans on the smug fizzogs of Dr Michael Smurfit, Eddie Jordan, Michael O’Leary, Dermot Desmond, JP McManus, Denis O’Brien or Sir Dr AJF O’Reilly KBE PhD Etc Etc. Collect a bonus if you get two in one shot, double it if they’ve their arms around each other. Ireland’s finest, these are truly great men.
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The disgraceful scenes at Brookline. For one brief moment in 1999 when a procession of whooping Yanks, along with their caddies and Stepford Wives did the conga across Jos? Maria Olaz?bal’s line on the dancefloor at 17, the Ryder Cup was well worth watching. The ensuing indignation-fuelled hoopla ensured that peace, love and understanding have been high on the Ryder Cup agenda ever since. More needle please - let’s have some conflict and controversy at the K Club.
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The fact that it’s not being staged in the USA. The presence of thousands of Yanks coralled behind the ropes, whooping and hollering at golf balls to “grow teeth” or “geddindahole” is usually enough to stoke the embers of anti-American sentiment that glow within even the most apathetic European. Sadly, geography dictates that they’ll be largely conspicuous by their absence. If they must play on an American-style course, why not go into the belly of the beast and play in America?
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The conspicuous absence of Peter Alliss. Let’s face it, a golf tournament without the BBC commentator’s politically incorrect, patronising and longwinded anecdotes is no golf tournament at all. Which reminds me. “I’m obliged to Major Rupert Bovingdon, treasurer of the Swinley Forest Golf Club down in Berkshire for bringing this little snippet to my attention …”