Watson must understand the competition is now a Grand Tour de force
However baffled Bubba Watson was in 2011 by Paris, with its “big tower” (Eiffel) and “arch” (Arc de Triomphe), America’s golfers had better get used to the Ryder Cup’s Grand Tour. In France now and Rome in 2022, the transatlantic clash has broken free of its British and Irish moorings to explore the great capitals of the continent.
Le Golf National, 20 miles west of Paris, precedes the Marco Simone Golf and Country Club, 10 miles from Rome, and with views, they say, of St Peter’s dome, which puts it one up on, say, The Belfry near Birmingham. This week’s Ryder Cup is the first in France and only the second outside the British Isles. Only once has the event touched down in Ireland (the K Club in 2006) and once in Wales, at Celtic Manor. On this side of the water, the Ryder Cup has hit the road.
With the growth of Europe v the United States comes frantic commercialisation of the chance to stage it. In Italy already, the Marco Simone is being worked on by “architects, engineers and agronomists”. New roads, paths and lakes are being laid down. These transformations are of mini-Olympic scale, with countries now treating Ryder Cup hosting rights as a mark of national esteem.
The build-up to this 42nd running five miles from the Chateau of Versailles reflects the expansion of Ryder Cup golf into an entertainment marathon and “travel package”, with official five-night trips ranging from £2,000-£5,000, depending on how nice you want your Paris hotel to be. A celebrity match on Tuesday will feature the actor Jamie Dornan, surfer Kelly Slater, footballers Luis Figo and Alessandro Del Piero and former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. More football magnetism is applied with David Ginola presenting a one-hour opening ceremony, which is followed by a 90-minute concert by the Kaiser Chiefs and Jain, from France.
The Kaiser Chiefs and golf? Set your face to surprised mode. But this is how the modern Ryder Cup rolls. And all the major European golfing countries want a piece of it. Already major courses in Ireland are vying for the 2026 rights, with Adare Manor, Royal Portrush and Royal County Down mentioned. To win the 2018 race, Le Golf National fought off candidates in Germany, Sweden, Portugal, Holland and Madrid. The Ryder Cup, which was once staged at Moortown Golf Club in Yorkshire and Ganton near Scarborough, is now a movable feast and international television spectacle. Against that backdrop, scepticism about France’s appetite for golf seems irrelevant. Michael Lorenzo-Vera, a French European Tour pro, shocked his country’s golf administrators when telling the New York Times: “Golf is not a good thing here. It’s for rich people and spoiled kids. Golf is a very private thing for people in France. Private courses for only rich families or rich people – that’s it.”
The European Tour replied that 43 per cent of the daily 51,000 tickets had been sold to French nationals, compared with 37 per cent to Scots at Gleneagles four years ago. Plainly, the Ryder Cup now draws armies of sports tourists from all the participating countries, and many not even represented in the European team. Venues have expanded to accommodate these package holidaymakers and to build atmosphere. The first-tee grandstand in Paris is huge, with 6,500 seats. Hazeltine, two years ago, found room for 1,668. With “no pedestrian access” the French course has set up a military-scale transport hub to move the public around.
With travel deals for Paris and Rome superseding trips to the golfing heartlands of England and Scotland, the Ryder Cup enters an experimental phase. An event that was once an esoteric ceremonial contest between the tours of Europe and America now announces its arrival in a great European city with the captains hitting golf balls from the Eiffel Tower.
Ireland, in 2026, would be a more traditional European setting. But Ryder Cup golf clearly has a taste for its Grand Tour, which America, with its country club structure, would find hard to replicate. If Europe is showing off a bit, it will not impress Watson, who said in 2011 of Paris’s most famous gallery: “It starts with an ‘L’ – Louvre, something like that.”