Stat profiles for 1500 golfers
The question I wonder, how long will it be before the governing bodies take the big bucks and expands the Ryder Cup to four days.
LOUISVILLE, KY. -- As I was hurtled down highway 64 this morning in the back seat of a town car my thoughts through red eyes from my 5am wake up call was did we have to do two days of 12 hour days. Since the beginning of the Ryder Cup matches in 1927, their have been two days of 36 holes of golf every match and many wonder if the days of Friday and Saturday 36 holes is close to gone.
Financial wisdom says that the Ryder Cup makes a fortune right now under it's present format, but the richest could grown even greater for the PGA of America and the European Tour if they do what the PGA Tour did with the President Cup matches, play 18 holes of matches on Thursday and Friday, 36 holes on Saturday followed by the traditional 18 holes of singles on Sunday.
Personally I think that the Ryder Cup drags on. Practice rounds on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday is a bit of overkill and the media is struggling now to find story lines to fill those days. But realistically there isn't that much more money to be made by expanding these matches. They get top dollar for the practice days and just a bit more for the three days of matches. Right now the resell value of tickets for today, Saturday and Sunday is not much, matter of fact this morning on Craig List you could get grounds badges for cost, people can't seem to get rid of them.
But as I was hurtling down highway 64, by seating companion Sky Sports announcer Bruce Critchley was dead set against the thought of changing the matches. As he said, "The heart and soul of these matches is to play them with 36 holes on Friday and Saturday." As he explained, the drain of two days of playing 36 holes is part of Ryder Cup folklore. Critchley, who wrote a book on the Ryder Cup called The Captain's Challenge thinks that this will never happen. Still I wouldn't mind one added day of extended sleep and think it wouldn't affect the matches.
Major change in the way the British press are
I started hearing this a couple of weeks ago, but the British press has drastically changed their loyalty towards team Europe. As an example, at the PGA Championship Scotland on Sunday reporter John Huggan and I had lunch and talked about how overpowering the European team was going to be this year. But the loyalties of those scribes from the other side of the Atlantic has changed, it seems the big talk among them is how great it would be writing on a European team loss. Most of them point out what a dumb move it was on Nick Faldo's part to pick Ian Poulter over Darren Clarke and relations haven't improved this week. As one British scribe said to me, "If Europe loses this week, every custom house at every airport in Britain will have a mug shot of Faldo with a "DO NOT ALLOW INTO THE COUNTRY" on it."
It could be very interesting reading come Monday morning.
0 comments
