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.

The very first of our early morning, nightmarish queues.

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.

By the end of the week we couldn’t wait to squeeze ourselves on to these travelling sardine tins.

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.

Hours of queuing…………

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!

More queuing. Patience is a virtue……Thank God the sun shone for three days.

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.

Stranded!

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?

Wow, wow, wow!  What a week, what a Ryder Cup!  Awash with emotion, fatigue, relief and joy, Europe annihilated, yes, annihilated the touted best-ever American Ryder Cup team to visit this continent.  And Patricia and I can beat our chests (though not quite as hard as Ian Poulter) and say proudly, “We were there!”

Having enjoyed a busy summer covering all the majors and going back and forward to America I have to confess the Ryder Cup sort of crept up on me and, knowing I was having a work-free tournament, I hadn’t really paid that much attention to the build-up – until Thomas Bjorn announced his picks.  Then I sat up and paid attention.  I walked crossly into the house and announced to my husband that, “Thomas Bjorn has just lost us the Ryder Cup.  Sergio can’t hit a barn door, Henrik has carried a long-term elbow injury and Casey and Poulter played well at the start of the year but have done nothing since.  How about picking players who are actually playing well?  Plus they’re all getting on a bit!”

It was all crystal clear, wasn’t it?  We were going to get whopped.  Ah well, at least we’d have a pleasant few days in Paris with no anxious nail-biting, because, well, it wasn’t going to be close, was it?  And in the end, it wasn’t!  Thomas’s picks delivered a whopping 9.5 points and US captain Jim Furyk’s a mere 2 points, both courtesy of his final pick, the multi-talented Tony Finau. Shows you what I know!

A wonderful setting for the closing holes, bathed in sunshine all week.

Europe combined to make the perfect team, the whole being so so much more than the sum of the individual parts.  That’s the bit the Americans don’t quite get.  At the top level in team golf nowadays you cannot afford to have any of the undercurrents of blame and discontent rumbling through the team.  The dissolution of the hitherto successful partnership of Patrick Reed and Jordan Spieth was obviously not handled as well as it could have been by Furyk because Reed was still aggrieved by it at the end of the week.  And what on earth was Reed’s wife thinking of – getting involved in twitter conversations re the split?  Heaven forbid that that would ever happen on a European side.

The sights and sounds of a Ryder Cup are extraordinary.  We see players in their work place in a way we never normally see them.  Quiet, understated, unflappable folk like Francesco Molinari turn into magnums of shaken champagne erupting into unconfined joy at the acquisition of another precious point. When he gets time to look back at the TV pictures he’ll wonder was that really him?  How fitting that the honour of clinching the Cup and becoming the first European player to win five points out of five should fall to Molinari.  His fellow Italians must be rubbing their hands in delighted expectation of hosting the next home match in 2022.

It’s not just the players that are different, the crowds are too.  It’s not uncommon to see all manner of fancy dress and always something to bring a smile to your face.

Birdies of a different sort on show.

Not all fans dressed in red were behind the US.

Finally, the behaviour of these crowds is also different and, to be honest, it is something I struggled with a little bit.  At one point when an American shot found water to loud European cheers, Patricia turned to me and said, “Dad wouldn’t like that.”  And no, he most certainly wouldn’t.  We were definitely brought up not to celebrate an opponent’s mistake or misfortune and to be respectful and fair at all times.  So, why was I enjoying it so much and, whisper it quietly, even doing my own share of cheering?

Patricia felt it was because it was akin to cheering when your opposing footie team missed a penalty.  It is in a way, but I don’t like any comparison to football.  Claude Harmon summed it up perfectly for me.  The Ryder Cup is no longer simply a great golf event, it is one of the world’s greatest sporting events and as such, there are many many sports fans present who are not necessarily golfers.  The crowd was so involved in the matches and so partisan and that all contributed to a stunning atmosphere and one that every player on each side relished.  Not once did I hear an unkind remark aimed at any of the opposing players (unlike two years ago in Hazeltine), and not once was there anything but respectful silence when the Americans were playing.

Two years ago there was an unpalatable edge to a section of the crowd’s behaviour because alcohol was on sale from 7am when the gates opened.  This small but vocal number of boozed-up fans were a disgrace and an embarrassment to our gracious hosts.  There was absolutely none of that in Paris.  So, sorry Dad, I am OK with the cheering of the US water-bound shots and their missed putts.  The involvement of the fans is part of the whole experience of the current-day Ryder Cup as long as it is good natured and no American player had any criticism to make.  When Patrick Reed holed the winning putt in his singles match he turned to the crowd and held his finger to his lips, returning the shushing gestures he had received from them as he walked up onto the green.  He then dropped his club on the ground and applauded the galleries and the part they had played in supporting their team.  It was a nice moment.

So, well done Thomas Bjorn and the European team.  The captain’s picks were pivotal. Sure, I knew all along we’d win!!

Tired but happy! Our boys did it!

In all the euphoria of Paris and Europe’s majestic mangling of the supposedly all-conquering United States Ryder Cup team, it’s easy to forget that it all looked pretty bloody awful near the end of the first morning.  We were 3-nil down and Tommy Fleetwood and Francesco Molinari were two down after 10 against Tiger Woods and Patrick Reed. The Anglo-Italian combo birdied 11 and 12 to square the match and it was still level after 14 holes but thoughts of a depressing, Cup-over-before-it-began series wipeout started creeping in.

Sitting near the top of the stand on the 18th, giving my jaw a workout with an overpriced but well-filled baguette, I was feeling a bit gloomy, not helped by the sight of Fleetwood’s second shot to the fearsome 15th apparently heading towards the water.  Somehow it hung on to the edge of the green – collective will perhaps – and Fleetwood changed everything when he holed the putt for a birdie three.  He went wild, hair flying, fist pumping so hard you feared his momentum might take him into the water across the green.  The crowd went from subdued to super-charged in one glorious, mad moment and that was the end of subdued for the duration.

Sue Spencer (front, 3rd from right) with her adoring fans in Somerset.  Strictly no crowd surfing.

Fleetwood did the same again, more or less, at the 16th and when Molinari birdied the 17th, Woods and Reed found themselves shaking hands, defeated, deflated and, more than likely, bemused.  The Americans never recovered and the Europeans never looked back.  It was intoxicating.

 It was noisy and there was unashamed cheering whenever the Americans missed a putt and put a ball in the water but out on the course, it didn’t seem wrong, it seemed spot on, gladiatorial, partisan but not vicious or nasty.  I agree it isn’t for the purist but the Ryder Cup isn’t golf as usual – apart from, mostly, impeccable silence whenever a player is playing a shot; it’s golf off the leash, golf’s Cup Final, Six Nations, whatever compelling, no-quarter-asked-or-given sporting contest you can think of.  The players give their all, pouring their heart and soul into the endeavour and so do the spectators.  No wonder we’re all shattered at the end.

I know people who celebrated, cavorting on the 18th green, partying into the night and no doubt eating cake at Versailles and were still well enough to take selfies with Molinari at the Gare du Nord the next day.  That wasn’t Maureen and me.  Packed into the shuttle bus to the station for one last time (hooray), there was no chanting, no oleing, no celebrating.  You’d have thought we’d lost, so quiet were we, unsmiling, concentrating grimly on remaining upright as the bus lurched along its route.  We, too, had given our all and, like Tiger, had run out of gas.

Wales captain Vicki Thomas keeping the dragons flying.  Thomas Bjorn didn’t have to drive his own buggy.

If you’re thinking of going to a Ryder Cup as a punter sans privileges, prepare as though you’re going to walk in the Himalayas because you’ll undoubtedly face a route march before you even reach the golf course; and pack your own food or empty your bank account.  I paid 5 Euro for a white Magnum out on the golf course – you must really have wanted that Magnum a friend said – but I made sure I enjoyed it.

The organisers were lucky it didn’t rain – wet punters disgruntle much more quickly than dry ones – and, of course, winning puts a gloss on everything.

It would be nice to slump in a heap for a week or two, absorbing it all, sorting through the memories – that fist bump with Fooch, that wave from Rory, that chat with Justin Thomas’s college friends – and soaking the aching feet.  It was worth another early start on Wednesday just to visit the chiropodist.

Laura Webb leads off for Ireland.

And yesterday the alarm went off again at some ungodly hour, not quite of Paris proportions but early enough because I had to be at the golf club by 0700 to leave for Burnham & Berrow for the last day of the Women’s Senior Home Internationals.  Ten of us, led and driven by the redoubtable Susan Sims in a tatty, rented minibus – it looked ok in the dark but as the day got brighter and we started to take an interest in our surroundings, it became apparent that whoever had cleaned the inside must have done so in the dark without any real idea of what the task involved.  Whatever.

We reached Somerset safely and my spirits soared when I saw the golf course again – a lovely links, a proper course,   all humps and hollows, under a brilliant blue sky.  We were there to support Whittington Heath’s super senior Sue Spencer – Spenny – who was playing in her first home international series for England, a daunting prospect as well as an exciting one.

B & B is a glorious old-fashioned course – you go all the way out and come all the way back – and by the time I’d bought a sandwich and a pair of socks (having left mine neatly laid out at home), Spenny and co were well away.  I caught up with them at the 8th, the very far end of the course by which time I was in my shirt sleeves, topping up my vitamin D levels.  It was a joy to be there.

WHGC captain Karen Crarer, an Englishwoman, admires the winning team’s green jackets.

Spenny and her partner Karen Jobling, a member of Richmond in Yorkshire, who has also played cricket for England, lost on the 16th to the Welsh pair of Jane Rees (Minchinhampton) and Patricia Fernon (St Pierre) but it was to be Wales’s only point of the final day.  Still, England, I am happy to report, finished second behind Ireland, with Scotland third.  It was a close-run thing, with all three teams recording two wins but Ireland, the defending champions, captained by the ageless Valerie Hassett, won just enough games to retain the title.  Hooray.  Next year’s matches are at Co Sligo Golf Club, Rosses Point, which was where Dad grew up and was always his little bit of heaven on earth.

The atmosphere was a little less fevered than at Le Golf National – the WHGC contingent provided the bulk of the crowd and we were on our best behaviour – but the players were no less passionate, determined to represent their countries to the best of their abilities and in many ways it was even more sublime than Paris.  No long walk to the bus for a start……

Well, bravo, he did it.  Tiger won again at last and the scenes at East Lake were suitably manic.  So will he work his magic at Le Golf National and inspire the US Ryder Cup team to a first win in Europe since 1993?  That is not a mis-type.  It really is 25 years since Europe have had to hand over that wee gold trophy on home soil.  It’s an incredible stat and the law of averages suggests that it’s time the Americans won again.  In Paris, which has a certain ring to it.  Is there a song?

Will the Americans swing it in Paris?

I read a piece in the Daily Mail – my French isn’t quite up to L’Equipe (and neither is my keyboard) – where the sainted Colin Montgomerie suggested that any European player drawn against Tiger would be scared witless.  Now, Monty had a talent for winning Ryder Cup points that was probably exceeded only by his ability never knowingly to understate.  If you want a man to go over the top – in every sense – Monty is unlikely to disappoint, charging in where more cautious souls wouldn’t dare.

Predictions are always dangerous and mine are usually rubbish but here’s this week’s hostage to fortune:  Tiger won’t play more than three matches.  How can he?  However fit he is, he must be cream-crackered and the adrenalin rush of last week must peter out soon – musn’t it?   Surely his back, however well fused, can’t cope with five tours of a long, tough, tiring golf course in three days.  And can he be trusted in foursomes, even though his driving stats seem to have improved?  Whatever answers the next three days reveal, should our men really be scared of one man, who even at the height of his powers only played on one winning Ryder Cup team?!

(from left to right) Phil Mickelson, Patrick Reed, Tiger Woods and Bryson DeChambeau suss out the course

One of my all-time favourite matches was at Valderrama in 1997, where Tiger, in his first full year as a professional, having set Augusta alight with his brilliance in winning the Masters by 12 shots, was given a bit of a lesson by Costantino Rocca in the singles.

Tiger was used to winning matches – three consecutive US Junior titles were followed by three US Amateurs – but this was a different level altogether.  Not only was his opponent a seasoned professional, he was playing well in front of fervent fans who lined every fairway and chanted “Rocca, Rocca, Rocca” as though they were at a football match as the players walked down the fairways.  For every shot, however, there was an impeccable silence.  The Italian was implacable as he stayed in a cocoon of concentration and blocked out the hoopla and the oles to give a master class of playing one shot at a time.  Tiger, struggling with his game, fought like blazes but he was four down (as I remember) at the turn.

”Time for lunch, I think,” one US journalist said to another and they peeled off to the clubhouse (think we were allowed in such places in those far-off days).  Blimey, I thought, it’d take a death in the family to drag me away from this.  It really was that compelling – and I followed my own route round the course, kneeling beside former President George Bush (senior) and getting the best possible view of what I consider Rocca’s finest hour (that St Andrews Open included).  He won on the 16th and only then did he let the emotions flow after a majestic tour de force.

Can Sergio (left) and his father and coach Victor (right) summon up the flair and passion one more time?

Thomas Bjorn, this year’s captain, made his debut that year and was four down after four (I think) in his singles when captain Seve came barrelling over and told the Dane to relax.  “I AM RELAXED,” Bjorn yelled at the top of his considerable voice and Seve took the hint and tootled off to annoy someone else.  Bjorn halved his match.  I’ve always felt a bit sorry for Tom Kite, the American captain that year, because I don’t think he was that bad but Seve was – well, Seve squared, appearing here, there and everywhere on his buggy, trying to play every shot.  It was a damned close run thing but there was NO WAY Europe were going to lose in Spain under the maestro Severiano.

I’m hoping that this year another Italian, a calm, cool, collected champion of the year called Francesco Molinari, who halved with Tiger in the mayhem at Medinah, will continue to inspire and that he and Tommy Fleetwood defy the odds and beat Tiger and Patrick Reed in the fourballs this morning.  The two Europeans are low-key guys but there’ll be nothing quiet and understated about this match.  Expect another cracker.

No cut this week but can Rory, shorn, be Europe’s strong man?

Mind you, it’s usually cold, wet and utterly miserable whenever the match is played in Europe and this year, whisper it quietly, we spectators are more likely to suffer from sunstroke than hypothermia.  It’s been glorious, shirt-sleeve weather in Paris and so far waterproofs have been surplus to requirements and sunhats de rigueur.   Admittedly, it might be chillier at 0600 when we’ll be heading off to the course, so I have to decide if I have the nerve to leave the thermals in the hotel room and rely on the heat of the action.

Nothing to do with the golf, this is to show the Beacon Park dog walkers how it’s done in the Bois de Boulogne!