Lifting the Lid
You know what they say: size isn’t everything. The Ryder Cup is only 17 inches tall, from the bottom of its base to the top of the cap of the golfer standing on its lid, yet what this gold cup represents is beyond monetary value. In keeping with many of sports’ finest historic trophies, the Ryder Cup has a shining intrigue all of its own
the essentials
The Ryder Cup was presented to the British PGA in 1927 by Samuel Ryder, an English seed merchant and fanatical golfer. It is made of gold, stands 17 inches tall and spans nine inches from handle to handle. It weighs four pounds and carries a hallmark for 1926, when it was commissioned from Mappin & Webb in London at a cost of £250 (which converts to around $20,000 in today’s money).
the midas touch
A figure of a golfer stands on top of the Ryder Cup’s lid, and according to frequently reported wisdom this figure is modelled on Abe Mitchell, who was among Britain’s finest golfers during the inter-war era. The esteemed English journalist Henry Longhurst rated Mitchell as “the finest golfer not to have won The Open” (like so many before and since, it has been said that Mitchell’s putting was his downfall). Mitchell, who grew up working on the greenkeeping staff and caddying at Royal Ashdown Forest Golf Club in Sussex, would eventually become the personal golf coach for Ryder. Mitchell was appointed captain of Great Britain and Ireland’s first Ryder Cup team in 1927, but he was taken ill with appendicitis on the eve of the team setting sail from Southampton to the US, and so was forced to miss the voyage and the first Ryder Cup at Worcester CC, Massachusetts. Mitchell would play in the next three Ryder Cups, in 1929, ’31 and ’33.
mitchell’s big miss
Abe Mitchell posted eight top-10 finishes in 17 appearances in The Open, and the closest he came to major glory was in 1920 at Royal Cinque Ports in Kent, just around the coastal corner from this year’s venue, Royal St. George’s. After a steady opening round of 74, Mitchell scored the low round of the second day, 73, to take the halfway lead. However, he let the chance slip with a torrid third round of 84, while his compatriot George Duncan—who had opened with a pair of 80s—shot 71, 72 over the final two rounds to win, with Mitchell fourth. Nine years later, in 1929, Mitchell’s friend and rival Duncan was named captain of the GB&I team for the first Ryder Cup matches played on British soil,
at Moortown GC near Leeds.
is it a myth?
In researching his 2014 book, “Ryder Cup revealed”, English writer Ross Biddiscombe cast doubt over the widely believed story that the figure on the Ryder Cup lid was Mitchell. Biddiscombe argues that Ryder agreed to provide the trophy at a meeting with the British PGA in July 1926, and that it is unlikely there would have been time for a bespoke trophy to have been designed, approved and manufactured in time for the inaugural Ryder Cup in June, 1927. His research turned up no evidence of a bespoke design. Biddiscombe writes: “As a Hollywood storyline, to have Samuel Ryder’s great friend as the model for the trophy golfer is faultless, but the cold reality is probably the more prosaic version of events. Or maybe it is best that no
one still knows the truth for sure.”
But then again, if the trophy did cost £250 at the time, this is an extremely steep bill for a trophy
bought off the shelf in 1926 or ’27.