Ole, ole, ole……….oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!  Europe were well and truly thumped at the Ryder Cup in Whistling Straits last weekend.  Outplayed, out-performed, outclassed and out of sorts.  Their resistance to the steamrolling juggernaut that turned up alongside Steve Stricker, the American captain, was paltry and the harder the Europeans tried the more elusive became the laser-like approach shots and clutch putts they required.

There has been a triumphant fanfare from the American press that this is the dawning of a new era, that this is an American side that will dominate for decades to come.  Just a second – let’s not get too carried away here.  All sport is cyclical and ebbing and flowing is all part and parcel of the game.  And just because the Europeans were in the ebbing part of the cycle this year doesn’t mean they’ll still be ebbing come 2023 and Rome.  In fact, I bet you they aren’t.  There are a number of young players waiting in the wings and many more we’ve never heard of harbouring fierce ambitions to be in the team in two years’ time.

Apart from the result (for the Europeans, that is) there was plenty to enjoy about this Ryder Cup.  Whistling Straits is a wonderful, scenic test of golf although I would have preferred it if the players had not had a 9-iron or wedge in their hand for quite SO many second shots into the green.  I enjoyed seeing Jordan Spieth back near the top of his game and his match with Koepka on Saturday against Rahm and Garcia in the fourballs was a matchplay delight.  Sergio may have been the grizzled veteran in that European combo but he was like a wee boy in his eagerness to hit the next shot.  At times he wasn’t a million miles removed from that effervescent 19-year old who famously went skipping and jumping up the fairway after a stellar shot from the roots of a tree in the 1999 PGA Championship.

How could you not love Shane Lowry?  A great big bear of a man who made no secret of the fact that this was what he was born for.  The outpouring of emotion the second after holing the winning putt on the final green of his Saturday fourball with Tyrrell Hatton will live long in the memory.  We hadn’t  witnessed that at Portrush in his fairytale winning of the Open a couple of years ago.  The Ryder Cup inspires many players to more than they could fathom.

Every American player contributed to the points tally.  Dustin Johnson looks back to his best and in winning five points out of five he joins Larry Nelson and Francesco Molinari in producing a full house in what could be called the modern era.  The only other player to tee it up all five times was Jon Rahm, world No 1 and undoubted on-course leader of the European side.  He succumbed in the singles to Scottie Scheffler which just goes to show what a monumental task it is for any player to deal emotionally, physically and mentally with five outings.

The players say every single shot, right from the off, is like a shot when you’re in contention on the back nine of a major on Sunday.  Right there that puts it more in perspective for those of us who will never know what it’s like to step into that sort of exacting arena.

I enjoyed watching the hatless (definitely not hapless) Patrick Cantlay fashion three wins and a half from his four matches, even if he did beat Shane in the singles.  Cantlay came to the Walker Cup at Royal Aberdeen in 2011 as the No 1 amateur in the world and great things were predicted, and expected, of him.  A few years later he had the crushing and life-changing experience of witnessing his best friend and caddy being killed in a traffic accident.  Dark days followed and, coupled with injury, those days turned into years.  His quiet demeanour, which has often led to him being mistaken for being taciturn, has kept him largely in the background as far as the fans are concerned.  This is definitely his time, however – winner of the Fed-Ex Cup and a $15 million bonus and now unbeaten in his maiden Ryder Cup.  Hats off indeed, Mr Cantlay!

Much as there was to enjoy there was quite a lot to abhor.  Never, ever, have I heard the opposition in golf being booed when introduced on the first tee.  Thankfully, that seemed to be sorted out by the Sunday but that behaviour must not be tolerated and must be stamped out once and for all.  It’s not acceptable at any level and what is the point in having the digital screens flashing up messages saying abusive behaviour will lead to eviction from the course when nothing happens?  Cheer like mad for your own team, yes.  Greet the opposition with polite applause or even silence, yes.  But we can do without the “get in the water” and “miss it” cries.  It is so important the powers-that-be do not let the game descend into the gutter.

As usual, an honours degree in mental agility and memory was required to follow the leapfrogging nature of the television coverage.  Sky did their valiant best to deal with the peripatetic feed from the US broadcasters who frequently missed out key shots or putts, or worse still, played the shots out of turn.  Too often the commentators were hung out to dry and scrabbling to remember who was playing whom and what the score was.  A few more graphics would have helped but they weren’t forthcoming from the host broadcasters and then in an instant we were off to another match.  You couldn’t leave the room for a second and expect to return knowing what was going on.

Nevertheless, it’s been a feast of golf this year and huge congratulations must go to the US for winning the Walker, Curtis and Ryder Cups.  Congrats, too, to a wonderful European Solheim Cup team.  Like Rory, I can’t wait to do it all again!

Looks like a pretty low-key week golfwise, just a dozen European cheeseheads out in Wisconsin trying to charm the locals into silence ahead of a Ryder Cup that is more or less off limits to away fans and will be awash with red, white and blue.

A dog-walking friend of mine was puzzled by the lumps of cheese sported by the players as they emerged on to the first tee during practice.  She caught a glimpse of a load of eejits wearing lumps of yellowy-orange plastic on their heads and immediately assumed it was some sort of quaint American idiocy.  “No, those were the Europeans,” I said.  “Wisconsin’s renowned for its cheese.”

And famous for the Green Bay Packers too, of course, a football (American) team of some note, historically at any rate.  Fans of the Packers – and people from Wisconsin – are nicknamed cheeseheads.  As lonelyplanet.com put it:  “Wisconsin is cheesy and proud of it.  The state pumps out 2.5 billion pounds of cheddar, Gouda and other smelly goodness – a quarter of America’s hunks – from its cow-speckled farmland per year.  Local licence plates read ‘The Dairy State’ with udder dignity….”   Excruciating but irresistible and in my defence I’m only quoting….

A couple of weeks ago the European Solheim Cup team managed to keep tens of thousands of would-be rowdy US fans quiet in Toledo, Ohio and won the trophy, against most of the odds, for the second time in a row.  The visiting players celebrated their successes but not in an aggressive, IN-YOUR-FACE sort of way, mindful that they didn’t want to antagonise the crowd, just dampen their enthusiasm by keeping the home team under the cosh, struggling to make an impact.

Catriona Matthew, Europe’s captain, victorious at Gleneagles and then, uniquely, at Inverness (the first European captain to win home and away), is still in America and was at Whistling Straits to receive the plaudits at the Ryder Cup opening ceremony.  Padraig Harrington, eloquent and relaxed on the podium, will be hoping to emulate that remarkable triumph.

It’s going to be tough, not least because something makes me think of Seve in charge at Valderrama – how on earth could Europe lose?  The players couldn’t, wouldn’t let Seve down, at home, in Spain.  It just couldn’t happen.  Well, Europe did win.  But only just, hauled to the finish on a wave of raw emotion.

Steve Stricker is no Seve but he’s a quietly passionate man and he’s at home, in Wisconsin, a place he loves with all his heart.  And his players love him, respect his honesty and his quiet confidence, surely that and the raucous home support will give them the edge?  The USA’s recent Ryder Cup record is, frankly, abysmal.  They’ve won only two of the last nine contests though those two, at home, were won by sizeable margins and it beggars belief that they could lose again.  But Padraig Harrington is a wily old campaigner, no less passionate or likeable than Stricker.  Which of them is going to be disappointed and have to put a brave face on defeat?  Or could it be a draw, with Europe, as the holders, taking the cup home again?

Who knows?  I’ve listened to some of the endless “Live From The Ryder Cup” build-up and I’m really none the wiser when it comes to predicting the result.  Who’s playing the best?  Who’s going to hole the putts that matter?  Are the Euros too old and past their best?  Are the Americans an irresistible force?

That remains the great unknown but the great thing is that all will be revealed over the next three days (weather permitting – it chucked it down before the opening ceremony) and we’ll be off and running later today.

To go from the sublime to the ridiculous, you’ll be glad to know that my new clubs are not, after all, infallible.  I had my first 20-yard nobble (off the tee) a few days ago, much to the amusement of several interested spectators who were playing an adjoining hole and asking if the new clubs were living up to the promise of their first outing.  Talk about getting my comeuppance!

There was another chastening outing a couple of days later when I schlepped back down to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium (just off White Hart Lane) – car to Milton Keynes, then coach – to see Spurs demolished by Chelsea in the second half.  The score was 3-0 to them but it could easily have been 5 or 6 as we were overrun.  Ah well, back to the training ground.

To end on a more cheerful note, many congratulations to Ireland on winning the R&A men’s home internationals and the Raymond Trophy at Hankley Common last weekend.  Having beaten Scotland and Wales, they halved their last match, against England, 7 1/2 – 7 1/2, despite losing the foursomes 4-1, a stunning comeback.

 

 

 

 

Padraig Harrington has no doubt had a few good nights’ sleep since he announced his three picks for this year’s Ryder Cup last Sunday.  One of his problems was that he didn’t know the full complement of his automatic qualifiers until around three hours before his full team announcement deadline.  I suppose, though, that his whole life in competitive golf has been all about staying in the present and dealing with whatever comes at him.

It has been an open secret for a while that Sergio and Ian Poulter were odds-on to get the nod, so in the end it really came down to a straightforward choice between Shane Lowry and Justin Rose for that last spot.  That phone call to Rose, one of the nicest guys in the game, has surely been Padraig’s most difficult task to date.

I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Justin for quite a long time and he’s always been generous and thoughtful in his interviews.  I was at the Players’ Championship in 2008 when he and Mark Fulcher, the blog’s favourite caddy, teamed up for the first time.  Mark was really excited at the prospect of caddying for Justin and I blush now as I recall telling him not to stuff it up!

They had an inauspicious beginning, missing the cut that week but after that they motored along the highway to multiple successes, most precious among them the 2013 US Open and, of course, Olympic gold in Rio in 2016.  Sprinkled in amongst that lot were numerous Ryder Cup highs, most memorably for me the time they took down Phil Mickelson in the singles at Medinah.  Ah, memories, memories.  And many congrats to Fooch on his win at Wentworth with Billy Horschel.  Brilliant.

And now Shane has a chance to add to the memories he’s accruing to tell the kids and grandkids.  After his historic and spine-chillingly glorious win in the Open at Portrush I think many would have struggled to imagine an achievement that would come close to that wonderful July day in 2019.  However, remarkably, the following was his first tweet last Sunday after Padraig Harrington called him into “the Principal’s office” to deliver his decision.

And right there, perhaps, you have the answer to that extra “je ne sais quoi” the Europeans have over their opposition.  The answer as to why the Europeans frequently add up to so much more than the sum of their parts while the Americans just don’t.  Where does it come from?  I’m not sure, but it certainly abounds on this side of the Atlantic, arguably having started with the magic that Seve brought to the European melting pot.  There have been numerous players who have represented Europe who have come alive and achieved far in excess of what they could produce on an individual stage.  But here’s Shane, a recent major winner – and THIS is the proudest moment of his career.  Inspiring indeed.

Slightly less inspiring at the moment is my own golf.  Tee to green is absolutely fine – quite satisfying in fact, but I haven’t yet worked my way out of the maze of yipping misery on the greens.  It rather reminds me of the terrors of the ghost train ride at Barry’s Amusements in Portrush where we would be taken as children for a treat.  The ghost train would rattle you along rails in total darkness until some spooky, screaming banshee would emerge out of the darkness right in front of you.  At other times, you would feel the icy touch of something just by your ear.  It was horribly unpleasant and absolutely wonderful when you finally emerged into daylight and the welcoming arms of your parents.  I sincerely hope putting daylight isn’t too far away.  Hmm, perhaps it’s time to source a long putter for these emergency time frames as I seem to have given my last one away.  I console myself with the knowledge that nothing in golf is permanent.

Over the last couple of years I have become quite an experienced armchair golf watcher – something I had never been before in my life because I was privileged to be working at all the big events.  The last event I was present at in the States was the US Open at Pebble Beach in 2019.  Gary Woodland triumphed there, just pipping Brooks Koepka with whom I walked all four rounds in my role as an on-course commentator for SiriusXM radio.  Obviously 2020 was wiped out, as was the start of 2021.

I lived on in hope that things would improve in time for Whistling Straits and the Ryder Cup this month but was forced to acknowledge this week that a trip over there wouldn’t be happening for me.  The UK is still on the USA’s red list so no access to the States is available for me just yet.  Oh dear, oh dear – that means another watching golf-fest for the sister and me; it means nul steps on the Step App;  it means hubby is on catering duty;  and it means we will all be roaring Padraig and his merry band of men on from the bottom of our hearts.

Can’t wait.  Not actually too shabby an alternative to being there!

I’ve been to ten Ryder Cups but my experience in Paris was like no other.  For starters I wasn’t working.  I wasn’t attending as a corporate guest either, but as a diehard, bona fide golf fan, in other words, as a normal punter.  And, if Paris is anything to go by, you have to be really resolute and determined, not to mention possessed of infinite patience, to manage one day, never mind three, at a modern-day Ryder Cup.

When I had applied for our tickets back in February the instructions as to how to gain access to Le Golf National had come back loud and clear.  You could drive your car to a designated car park from which you could hop on a shuttle bus to be taken to the course.  The heavily touted option, though, was to take public transport to one of two railway stations, one on the east side of the course, the other on the west.  From there shuttle buses would ferry everyone to the course.  The trick for us, therefore, was to stay reasonably close to a direct line in to St Quentin-en-Yvelines railway station, seven kilometres from the course and from which our shuttles would operate.

So, Patricia and I found ourselves a lovely little hotel in Boulogne-Billancourt, a lively, vibrant Parisian suburb not a million miles from Roland Garros.  We knew that in all likelihood it would take us about an hour and a half to get to the course but we were OK with that because we also wanted easy access to Paris and all its wonderful sights.  Many people were staying much further in than us – right in the heart of the city – but we felt we had the perfect compromise.  Early in the week we did a test run to check our timings and an hour and 40 minutes was pretty much par for the course.

Friday dawned and the alarm went off at the ungodly hour of 4.50 am.  We had decided to be at the course in loads of time to soak up the legendary atmosphere of a home Ryder Cup.  We left the hotel just after 5.30am (the Metro opened at 5.30) and all went well with our four stops on the Metro and then the train journey to St Quentin where we arrived around 6.35ish.  We were now only 7km from the course with over 90 minutes till tee-off.  We missed the opening shots of the match.

From stepping off the train we were directed out to where the shuttles were parked, but first hundreds and hundreds of spectators had to funnel through an opening between TWO people checking we all had tickets.  Talk about a bottleneck!  Thinking the worst was over we shuffled on another 50 metres to a security section where four lines of us squeezed through, half-heartedly opening bags as we went.  They were just as half-heartedly inspected.  Phew!  This was all beginning to take a bit too long.  Emerging from the seemingly pointless security check we were dismayed to see there were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people ahead of us in line for the transport to the course.  Time was marching on, but we most certainly weren’t and the ghastly thought occurred that perhaps we wouldn’t get too much opportunity to join in the pre-match singing.

In the cold morning air, with empty tums (no breakfast yet) and a need for that first caffeine shot of the day, we tortuously made our way closer to the nirvana of stepping onto the shuttle transport.  We made it!  Packed in like sardines, with standing room only, we swayed our way through the early morning traffic for 20 minutes, hanging on to pretty much anything we could and it was with no small measure of delight that we were disgorged at the course.  Our spirits lifted momentarily – it was approaching 7.30am, almost two hours since we’d set off, but we were at the course now, (weren’t we,?) and the first tee off was at 8.05am.  Once off the bus we joined yet another queue on the pavement, but this one was moving, albeit slowly, along by a hedge.  Not long to go now, surely?  With a huge degree of expectation we rounded the end of the hedge and couldn’t believe the sight that met our eyes – a car park of NEC proportions with literally hundreds of folk patiently shuffling, shuffling, shuffling to the speck in the distance that was…..the security checkpoint area!!  Hmm, thought we’d done that….but no, this journey had turned into a nightmare and we were trapped helplessly in the middle of the most pathetically organised movement of people (or not) that I had witnessed in a long time.

Thankfully, all things come to an end and eventually we cleared security only to discover we weren’t even yet on golf course property.  A fast, 15-minute route march delivered us to the West Village and a huge rectangular seating area bounded on all sides by the merchandise tent, catering outlets and at the far end a huge stage with a monumental screen.  A corridor of no more than five strides width had delivered this sea of humanity to this oasis but to find the exit to the course – you know, where the GOLF was being played – was a little more tricky.  Lack of signage didn’t help but our recce on Tuesday did.  We weaved our way through the plethora of picnic tables to a similar corridor that exited the village diagonally opposite to where we had entered.  Ah yes, another bottleneck!  We were getting used to these by now.  We filed through this narrow passage to be met by a staircase that we traversed and when we crested the top we caught our first sight of the course.

By this stage we were both plugged in to the on-course radios that we’d bought on Tuesday and were aware that the possibility of delaying the start had been mooted due to thousands of fans being trapped in endless queues trying to access the course.  The decision was to go ahead on time, so when we finally got our feet on the green, green grass of Le Golf National, the Ryder Cup had already started.  What a shambles it had all been!

We golf fans are nothing if not resilient, however, and we set off in pursuit of Justin Rose and Jon Rahm in the top match.  The pedometers on our phones were set to go through the roof for this week!  The day on the course ended better than it had begun and Europe rebounded from a 3-1 morning deficit to sweep the foursomes by four matches to nil.  Hooray!

Delighted that the matches had finished early and in our favour we were keen to get back to our hotel and find a nice little bistro and bottle of red for our post-match ruminations.  Hold on – not so fast!  We faced the nightmare journey in reverse, starting with the treacherous, and frankly dangerous funneling of everyone down the staircase into the tented village area.  An hour later and we hadn’t reached the security checkpoint only to be told over the loudspeaker that it would be another hour before we boarded a bus to the station and why didn’t we enjoy the tented village a little longer?  That brought wry smiles – we had been queuing 40 minutes since we had exited said village, locked into an immoveable mass of human beings.  Eventually, however, we squeezed onto a bus, standing room only, of course, and lurched our way back to the station.  On to one of the fabulous double-decker trains at last – and once again, sardine-like, standing for the 40-minute journey.  We made it back to our hotel some fifteen hours after we had left it, a long, long ole day, but fabulous – despite some six of those hours having been spent queuing!  And this logisitical movement of people had only been ten years in the planning, I’m told!

Allow me to finish regaling you with the travel challenges of the Ryder Cup.  Saturday was a revelation!  Everything ran like clockwork and we whizzed into, and away from, the venue in around an hour and 40 minutes – still sardine packed, but very happy sardines given the experiences of the Friday.  On Sunday, lulled by a false feeling of security and the knowledge that the first singles match didn’t tee off until after midday we were confident that THIS would be the day we would get there in time to join in the 1st tee singing.  We thought we’d leave the hotel around 8.30 and have breakfast at the course…. but we had not reckoned with the trains running to their normal, once-an-hour, Sunday timetable – and, no long trains, of course, only short ones!  Having just missed the 8.30, we didn’t panic and waited patiently for the 9.30.  It was like watching a train in India coming into the station – the only place people weren’t hanging off the train was on the roof.  The train pulled in……..and pulled out.  A couple of folk may have squeezed on, but it was dangerous and hundreds of fans were left standing on the platform.  Bearing in mind we were relatively close to the start of the train’s journey and had no hope of boarding, this scenario was repeated all the way down the line.

Of course, there was no information, no help, and we were left to our own devices to find a solution.  Banding together with a lovely Italian fan and a couple of American supporters, who were completely bemused by the whole experience, we sorted an alternative route complete with change of line and train to St Quentin-en-Yvelines.  Once there we navigated the buses, the security, the bottlenecks and the route march like the old hands we were and arrived at the course with fifteen minutes to spare.  A world record of three and a quarter hours to go from A to B.  Thank God it wasn’t a four day event – we might not have lasted the pace.

If you are still reading – well done for hanging in there, and you are probably thinking that it was a pity the travel was poor, but everything else was well organised, right?  Wrong!  In no particular order, these were the other challenges the humble fan faced.

1  Catering – slow, slow, slow service.  Unforgiveable in fact.  Pleasant staff, but no sense of urgency and manana was a little too immediate for them.  More time spent in queues.

2  Cost of food.  A cardboard carton of fish and chips was 15 euros.  I bought two pork and apple sauce baguettes (very dry despite the sauce) and three small bottles of still water – 34 euros.  This was rip-off city – and on the Sunday the catering place behind the 14th tee was sold out of baguettes by the time the FIRST match got there.  Underprepared and underwhelming quality.

3  Not nearly enough rubbish bins.  A few bin bags tied on to the rope line simply don’t do it.  The bins were full to overflowing by 10.00am and although most people piled their rubbish by the base of the bins, by the end of the day those of us behind the ropes were wading through a rubbish tip.  It was all cleared up by the next day, but I’ve never seen a golf event looking like that.

4  Not one single, stand-alone scoreboard on the golf course keeping us up-to-date.  There were screens showing the Sky Sports coverage and when Sky chose to show a scoreboard you could catch up on the overall situation – but only if you were quick and had your binoculars handy.  Suggesting everyone was using the Ryder Cup app is no defence.  It isn’t true – and apps chew up your phone battery in no time.

5  We are experienced golf watchers of 50 years so were armed with periscopes as well as binoculars.  Patricia’s periscope had been purchased at a previous Ryder Cup.  I lost count of the number of times people asked where they could get them and had we got them in the merchandise tent?  Despite the stadium-style mounding around the course, when you’re standing ten deep you can’t see anything – unless armed with a periscope.

It seems to me that the ordinary golf fan is endowed with endless patience and good humour.  It undoubtedly helped that at the end of each day we were buoyed by our team’s success, but it seems evident to me that the real golf fan is not considered one jot.  The powers-that-be must remember that it’s the fans who make the atmosphere and provide the great platform for the Ryder Cup.  Where would the tours be without a solid fan base?  They’re not asking to be mollycoddled – just to have reasonable and affordable facilities in place and to have well organised movement in and out of the venue.  And they are paying through the nose, remember.

One fellow professional, a golf tragic like us, had bought tickets for all three days and attended the match with two others.  After Friday’s experience, totally disgruntled, they caught a 3.00am Eurostar home and were in front of their own television sets on Saturday for the TV coverage.

So, to the powers-that-be – please don’t talk to us about “growing the game” if you’re not prepared to address these issues and please, please lift your eye momentarily and occasionally from the profit line.

Now, what do you think the Italian organisation will be like in 2022?  Dare you go and find out?