Golf leaves 72-hole stroke play at home when the Ryder Cup is around.
Instead, we have three days of intense team match play between Europe and the USA, which some people love watching, and some people don’t.
The stakes of the Ryder Cup seem higher each time as the Europe-USA rivalry is renewed. The away team is desperate to do what away teams rarely do, and actually win. The home team is desperate to deliver what is expected with the advantage of a crowd cheering for them.
And when the stakes get high, so do the decibel levels from both the players and the fans. The Ryder Cup resembles football more than golf from time to time. It is the only event in the sport with tribalism involved.
Since Bethpage was announced as the 2025 host venue, people have anticipated the most raucous atmosphere yet with a vast presence of New York sports fans.
The fans who love watching this want the passion and lung-bursting antics, but the people who hate it want the gentlemanly, polite game we’ve all grown up with to be preserved.
Who is right and who is wrong? NCG’s Dan Murphy and Matt Chivers lock horns on both sides of the debate…
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Ryder Cup behaviour debate
Is nothing sacred in golf anymore? asks Dan Murphy
Golf is not football. Sport is not war. It’s time the Ryder Cup was dialled back to what it was meant to be – a celebration of the game and a friendly transatlantic competition designed to foster friendships.
The change, while gradual, can be traced back as long as ago as the 1990s. At Kiawah Island in 1991, there were various shenanigans, while there is no need to detail the events of the final day at Brookline in 1999.
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The match is now becoming a biennial exhibition of excessive, slightly cringe-inducing and gloating celebrations that used to have no place in our sport.
I was brought up, in golfing terms, to have respect for my playing partners and opponents. You commiserate when they miss a putt or find trouble (even if internally your feelings are slightly different). You watch where their ball goes and try as hard to find it as you would your own. You praise their straight drives and skilful short game.
At the end of the game, win, lose or half, you shake hands and return to the clubhouse for a cup of tea (or something stronger, if appropriate). If unsuccessful, you dutifully record the result and wish them well in the next round. Very often, you have made a new friend, or cemented a pre-existing relationship.
Some of us still cherish these things. Is it too much to ask for at least some of such values to be remembered when it comes to the Ryder Cup?
Golf needs to be dragged by the ankles from the 19th century, states Matt Chivers
It’s every two years. Can we not cope with a few more decibels every two years?
Golf will never be football, but this is just once where the crowd is up for it, the players are up for it, and we see genuine tension and drama.
We want personalities in golf, yet we are shocked when they never come out, when the only format we accept is four days of endless boredom. You’ll see personality at the Ryder Cup, let me tell you.
No one actually watches all four days of a tour event either, so don’t tell me that you prefer this viewing experience.
People I know who hate the Ryder Cup will watch it. It is an absolutely unique exhibition of golf that embraces the tribalism of other sports that makes them so addictive.
It’s match play, too. You win or you lose. There aren’t 54 more holes where you can improve your strokes gained in approach. Match play is antagonism, it is gamesmanship, and a hole is never over until the last putt falls.
That is the Ryder Cup. We can’t both laud the qualities of match play and resent the general dullness of every-week tournaments, then say ‘I don’t want to watch the Ryder Cup because it’s all too much’.
Forget traditional golf for three days, and feast your eyes on this. It’s fun.
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