Does the UK government have any desire to bring the Ryder Cup back to England?

Surinder Arora began our conversation with the news that the Arora Group was one of two final bidders in contention to take charge of developing the third runway at Heathrow.

The UK government delivered the news Arora wanted, an Indian-born billionaire businessman who has made his fortune in the hotel sector, and first began developing bed and breakfasts to serve airline staff at the UK’s busiest airport over 30 years ago. However, he still needs its help to make another project take off.

Arora has made no bones about his intention to emulate Augusta National, host of the Masters each April, in Europe and more specifically, at Luton Hoo in Central Bedfordshire. Luton Hoo houses an 18-hole championship golf course, as well as a gym, pool, spa and historic estate grounds for walking and cycling.

It was when his son took him down Magnolia Lane to watch the event for the first time that the idea was planted in his mind.

The former co-owner of Wentworth, was full of enthusiasm and hope that the Ryder Cup could arrive in England in 2031, for the first time since 2002, but we have recently learned that Camiral in Spain will have the honour instead.

“They were definitely trying to bring it back for 2027. Sadly, they didn’t get the government traction, so they then awarded it to Ireland for JP (McManus, the owner of Adare Manor). And then for 2031 again, I think they tried very hard holding back for as long as they could – to see whether they’ll get the previous government’s attention or the current government’s attention,” Arora told NCG.

“But it didn’t get much attention, because they need to make sure (Ryder Cup Europe), whichever country they go to, that they’ve got the government on their side for all of the infrastructure, for policing, transport, everything. And again, they didn’t get much traction for this time. Hence, they went to Spain, to Denis’ place (O’Brien, owner of Camiral).

“I’m sure in 2035, they want to bring it to England, but we really do need the government to look at this seriously and see what benefits it brings in, and I very much hope that the government will see this and hopefully give the green light.”

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Arora’s understanding is accurate. The can that is England’s wait for another Ryder Cup has been kicked down the road for so long that 2035 is the earliest that somewhere on these shores can host Europe versus America in golf’s best team event.

In December 2015, the UK government published its sports strategy, Sporting Future, and named the Ryder Cup on a comparable scale to the Olympics and football’s World Cup. The Hulton Park project in Bolton and the Belfry were candidates for 2026 (now in 2027, due to the Covid pandemic rejigging the rota).

This suffered a major setback shortly after the 2018 Paris Ryder Cup when the then-sports minister Tracey Crouch quit government. Crouch had commissioned Sporting Future and showed enthusiasm for bringing the Ryder Cup back to England.

The Belfry, Hulton Park and the London Golf Club were part of a shortlist for the 2031 Ryder Cup, as well as Luton Hoo, but the government didn’t support a bid ahead of the October 2021 Autumn budget and spending review.

“If you look at the FIFA World Cup, football, rugby, and we’ve seen in the past, even in Boris’s days, when he went to the Olympic Committee meeting, with the government being supportive,” Arora added.

“I’m very much hoping (for) 2035 that the government can look at this quickly. We just saw a couple of weeks ago, what happened at Bethpage Black and what it brings, whether you get all those tons of people coming in, all the hotels, transport, restaurants, shopping.”

The Telegraph reported that UK Sport, the government’s elite funding body, had asked for £50 million to fund a bid for the 2031 or the 2035 Ryder Cup. The former has now been taken, but 2035 is still up for grabs.

Arora bought Luton Hoo from Elite Hotels in 2021. Now, the venue is going to be shut for two-and-a-half years for a refurbishment worth more than £180 million. The new layout of the golf course is being worked on by European Golf Design, plus the watchful eyes of Gary Player and Justin Rose.

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“We have been on golf buggies and walking. Thank God that Gary is fitter than I am!”

“We’ve been around every inch, every corner of the whole estate, every blade of grass, and looking and saying, let’s do this from profiling, let’s do this from bunkering.”

European Golf Design have previously worked on Ryder Cup hosts such as Celtic Manor, Le Golf National and Marco Simone, while Atlantic Golf Construction has also been brought in, which helped to build Adare Manor.

“It’s easy just to say I want to build the Augusta of Europe. But if you really want to do that, then you have to make sure we put the best team on there, a bit like when we used to hear during my younger days with German engineering on cars,” Arora said.

“If you want the best, you need to bring the best designers, and the best engineering. Even right down to the sprinkler system, whether it’s the sub-air system, we’re going to put sub-air everywhere, whether we’re actually going to sand-cap the whole course from a drainage point of view, and also from ecology, from a green point of view, it’s a lot better.

“I’m looking at this as what we want to create, something that will be putting Luton and Central Bedfordshire on the world map, and this is something that we can all be proud of,” he added.

“If you look at the founder of the Ryder Cup, where do you think he stayed for most of his life? There’s a museum there in St Albans.

“The stars are aligned. We will put our best foot forward, we will deliver the best thing. We will put our money where our mouth is. We aren’t waiting to get the green light to bring the Ryder Cup. We just said we’ll build it, let them choose, and whether it’s the tour, or the government, or the Ryder Cup committee, we’re going to create the best.”

The golf course should be done by the end of next year, with ‘Fairmont at the Hoo’, what the hotel is due to be called, coming a little later. The Ryder Cup has flirted with the boundaries of London before, in 1953 at Wentworth and 1981 at Walton Heath, but it is the modern-day transportation links and the general proximity of Luton Hoo to the capital that could work in Arora’s favour.

However, the London Golf Club in Kent is looking to build a 240-room five-star hotel, lodges and a pavilion, while the Belfry has also been revamped with 149 more bedrooms.

Arora is no stranger to competition, though. His company is rivalling Heathrow Airport itself, having been whittled down from an initial group of seven bidders, in its plans to build a shorter runway that doesn’t interfere with the M25, in a proposal worth £25 billion.

But while a decision on this front will be made at the end of November, the wait will go on to discover which English venue will host the Ryder Cup in a decade, and if the golden trophy will even come home at all.

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