Fear factor soars for first out into cauldron
Wall of noise will greet players from huge stand housing record 6,500 fans, writes Tom Cary
With thousands of fans hemming the players in on all sides, millions more watching on television and the weight of an entire continent on their shoulders, the opening tee-shot of the Ryder Cup is generally regarded as the scariest in golf. This year’s is on another level. When Justin Rose and Jon Rahm arrive to face Brooks Koepka and Tony Finau at 7.10am today, they are going to be met by a wall of noise. Simply put, the gargantuan grandstand that surrounds the first hole of the Albatros course is unlike anything seen before in golf. Holding 6,500 spectators, and rearing up behind the first tee, the temporary structure is roughly five times bigger than that which surrounded the first tee at Hazeltine two years ago – and that felt big enough at the time.
“It’s the biggest grandstand you’ll ever see at a golf tournament,” admitted Tommy Fleetwood, who will be partnering Open champion Francesco Molinari in this morning’s fourballs.
Little wonder that every player who has been brought in to face the media this week has been asked about it.
The opening shot of the Ryder Cup is already well known for making the flintiest of players go knock-kneed.
Tiger Woods put his ball in the drink at the K Club in 2006; Dustin Johnson missed right at Celtic Manor in 2010, an early omen for the United States; Webb Simpson with his infamous “pop-up” drive at Gleneagles in 2014, when he teed his ball up too high.
It is not just the player teeing it up first on a Friday morning, either. The opening shot for any player in a Ryder Cup is a challenge.
When Mark O’meara arrived as a rookie at The Belfry in 1985, he hit his opening drive so far left it finished up in the tented village. “I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe,” he told his partner Curtis Strange.
Padraig Harrington recalls how he could barely put the tee into the ground for his debut at Brookline in 1999, while even Woods tried to get out of hitting the first shot when he was paired with O’meara for his debut at Valderrama.
“Basically it’s the final round of a tournament on the very first hole... there’s a lot of nerves,” Woods explained.
When you factor in the tee-shot ahead of them today, the task is tougher still.
The landing area is devilishly tight. Pull it and you are in the water. Send it right and you are in the rough. Twenty yards too long and you are in the water again. Driver is most definitely out.
“This tee-shot’s as difficult a first tee-shot as we’ve probably played the entire season,” reckoned Jordan Spieth.
Spieth did note that – with a path separating the grandstand from the tee box – the players will actually be “pretty far removed” from the fans. “Compared to Gleneagles and Hazeltine, I think it will feel like more open space, to be honest,” he said. And it is true that the arena lacks the intimacy of those two courses.
Still, with 6,500 eyeballs boring holes in the backs of their heads, competing chants of “U-S-A” and “Europe” in between shots and water all the way down the left, the players today would not be human if they did not feel the nerves.
“It’s hard to explain to someone who hasn’t had to hit that tee-shot before,” said Ian Poulter when asked what the rookies can expect. “When I think back [to my first Ryder Cup] in 2004... the stand [at Oakland Hills] was nothing like what we have today.
“So, it really is going to be quite a special moment on Friday, and it’s going to be very interesting to see.”
Rahm, first up today, is one of those rookies. The Spaniard said he did not know what to expect, but he was looking forward to it all the same.
“I’ve had people that have experienced great things in golf tell me that a final tee time in a major is a two out of 10 compared to the first tee on a Ryder Cup. I feel like I’m going to have electricity coming out of me.”