intosport.com – the blog

I always watch the Masters and The Open – both of them incredible sporting events that always bring drama, passion and excitement to our TV screens. But much as I enjoy them both, and the other golf majors to boot, neither manage to enthrall me like the Ryder Cup. A notoriously uncomfortable opening ceremony complete with WAGS followed by three days of captivating matchplay between teams comprising many of the worlds leading players culminating in the Sunday singles during which boyhood dreams are realised, reputations are shattered and Nick Faldo makes unforgettable strange comments to the media.

For me the Ryder Cup sits up there with the FA Cup Final, the World Cup Final and the Wimbledon final. Unmissable sporting competition that the whole office will be discussing come Monday morning. It’s the flagship team event for golf and unquestionably the one that inspires kids to dream and head to their local driving range or pitch and putt course.

Golf has changed in recent times too, and much for the better.  It used to be elitist, stuffy, expensive and only accessible to the privileged few. Not any more – I recently asked the pro my local club how much Junior membership is at the club  and his answer left me dumbstruck  - £50 per annum, a third of the price I paid as a junior 20 years ago!  That’s less than a pound a week. Absolutely fantastic and brings golf in line with most other sports in the affordability stakes. 

So back to the point of where I started. The Ryder Cup. Why, oh why, oh why, when golf has done so much to make itself accessible to all, have the powers that be behind next year’s Ryder Cup decided to charge £100 per ticket per day and not offer a concessionary rate during the three competitive days.

When you add to the ticket price the exorbitant parking fees, a family of four wanting to go for a day would need a starting kitty north of £500 – not exactly affordable on recession constrained budgets.

So perhaps the high ticket prices have been chosen for another reason? To stop ticket touts? Nope,  the organisers already have lots of safeguards in place for this, including photo badged tickets. So maybe it’s about ensuring fair distriubtion? No, can’t be that either because you can only get tickets through a ballot.

Who knows why, but for my mind it’s a black mark on the sport and particularly those that organise the Ryder Cup. Here’s hoping there’s an initiative announced nearer the time to enable at least local children to get onto the course and experience some of the action and thrill of the event up close.

Filed under: General by cmiles