Lorne Rubenstein

Looking at the site of the 2010 Ryder Cup in Wales
July 19, 2006

The Ryder Cup in Ireland has ended, but the party's just starting across the Irish Sea in Wales. Well, it started a while back. The Welsh like to party, and they're more excited than ever about the 2010 Ryder Cup at the Celtic Manor resort near Cardiff.

By the way, did you notice the red uniforms the European team wore on Sunday? European Captain Ian Woosnam, the wee Welshman, decked his team out in red to signify the red dragon, the Welsh national symbol that plays so prominent a role in the country's flag. In case you're interested, red dragon in the Welsh language is "y ddraig goch." When you're in Wales, do as the Welsh do. Well, try anyway.

Here's another Woosie tidbit. He was asked to do an interview for a major magazine, and, apparently, agreed on condition that the magazine run a travel feature on golf in Wales. Watch for it down the road.

Photo: © Celtic Manor The 2010 Ryder Cup goes to another resort, this one Celtic Manor in Wales.

Celtic Manor's owner Sir Terry Matthews

Celtic Manor's owner Sir Terry Matthews was born on the property. It wasn't a resort, then, to be sure. He was born in the 19th century-vintage Manor House, which was a maternity hospital by the time he came into the world in 1943. Matthews made his fortune in a variety of high-tech enterprises. Now a citizen of Canada as well as Wales, he owns a highly-regarded golf course in the country's capital of Ottawa called The Marshes, and the Brookstreet Hotel.

Matthews effectively bought the Ryder Cup, having spent a reported £10,000,000 GBP or nearly 19 million dollars to get the event. Then there's the $30,000,000 he's putting into upgrading nine holes of the existing Wentwood Hills course and a new nine holes that will make up the as yet unnamed Ryder Cup course. European Golf Design, a joint venture of IMG and the European Tour, is doing the course.

Maybe that's what it should be called officially: The Ryder Cup course. Mind you, the European PGA Tour and the European PGA might want to have a say in that. For now, everybody is simply referring to it as the Ryder Cup course.

And, in fact, it's the first purpose-built course for the Ryder Cup. Most courses have been retrofitted or changed to allow for the unbelievable amount of infrastructure required to host a modern Ryder Cup. In an ideal, pure golf world, the Ryder Cup would have been held on a links such as Portmarnock or Ballybunion in Ireland, or in 2010, at the inspiring Royal Porthcawl links in Wales.

Photo © Celtic Manor Many of the orginial scenes and part of the old Wentworth Hills course will be incorporate in the new design.

But the Ryder Cup has long ceased to be about pure golf. That doesn't mean it can't offer exciting, even dramatic golf. It would be helpful if the U.S. were to play better, allowing for a closer result than has been seen in the last two Ryder Cups. Europe's won each of those by nine points.

So let's drop any pretense or illusions about pure links golf. We're looking at modern, Broadway golf, golf as theatre, golf on a huge stage and scale. The Welsh will offer these elements at Celtic Manor, a resort on a 1,400-acre property. A visit last week demonstrated to this visitor that the site, and the Welsh, should offer an extraordinary Ryder Cup. Matthews will settle for nothing less when it comes to the show he wants Celtic Manor to provide. We are speaking here, after all, of a man who says he knew he was going to be lucky in life when he came across a four-leaf clover on the grounds of a chapel near where he played as a child. He means 2010 to be a very lucky, and prosperous, year, for Wales.

When the bid was made for the Ryder Cup, the European Tour quickly determined that the original course was too hilly. Part of the deal was that the property had to be flattened, and the nine hew holes added. Viewing areas were critical as well.

The end result should be impressive. The last three holes in particular will allow for views unlike any I've seen anywhere, precisely because they've been built with that in mind. The holes will run below enormous hillsides. Each hole will contain a massive hospitality platform. The hospitality areas will hold about 8,000 people.

Another 45,000 people will be able to watch the play from the hillsides themselves. Meanwhile, spectators will be able to see some eight or nine holes in all from their vantage points. As for the tented village, so much a part of today's Ryder Cup, it will be three times the size of the one at the K Club.

Plans also call for 35,500 parking spaces for cars, not on-site but in three areas within a few miles. Buses, or coaches, as they're called in the U.K., will shuttle in spectators. A new highway interchange is being built to facilitate transportation. A new 38,000 sq. ft. clubhouse is being built, with separate changing facilities and rooms for the U.S. and European teams.

All in all, it's quite a feat of construction to behold, and on a site where 6,000 Roman legionnaires lived 2,000 years ago. Forty-eight archaeologists were on-site at the peak of construction.

Photo © Courtesy European Golf Design Here is a look at the progress of the new 18th hole at the Ryder Cup course at Celtic Manor since construction started in May of 2005.

The 18th hole is a par-five that could give the Ryder Cuppers fits, since it's supposed to play like the infamous 17th at Valderrama in Sotogrande, Spain. Course superintendent Jim McKenzie puts it this way: "It's simple: If you don't hit the green, the ball will roll back into the water."

As for now, the course is done and needs only to grow in fully. The European Tour's Wales Open will be held at the Ryder Cup course in the first week of June next year. Celtic Manor owns and sponsors the tournament, and has it through 2014. Meanwhile, all the talk's about the 2010 Ryder Cup. The Red Dragon's been sleeping, but it's ready to breathe some fire. And it's sure to let the golf world know how to say "Good health" or "cheers" in Welsh.

"Iechyd da. Yecky da", that is. If it's up to the warm-hearted Welsh, you'll hearing that a lot from now through Ryder Cup 2010.

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