Golf - Scotland and Wales pour fortune into fight for 2009 Ryder Cup

John Hopkins, The Times, 30 October 2000

Wherever you go in golf these days it is impossible to avoid tripping over the Ryder Cup. If it is not the event at Brookline last year then it is next year’s at The Belfry. Now attention turns to the 2009 Ryder Cup, with bids to be the host country to be received by the Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA) by midnight tomorrow.

By January or February 2001, the Ryder Cup Committee, the same six men who last summer asked Mark James to stand down as vice-captain of the Europe team next year, must decide between ten venues in four countries. While the head says that the six venues in Scotland, two in Sweden, one in Wales and one in England will be treated equally, the heart imagines this contest to be a struggle between the Celtic countries every bit as great as those at Cardiff, Murrayfield and Hampden Park.

Sweden has a moral case for staging a Ryder Cup for the first time. It has contributed numerous successful players to it and has staged many events on the European Tour. It is questionable, though, whether Sweden and, for that matter, the North East of England, have the financial firepower to match the bids of Scotland and Wales, both of which have followed the requirements of the bid document to a tee and then added considerable financial sweeteners from private industry.

It is hard to imagine that the parliamentary convocations in Scotland and Wales could stomach Sandy Jones, chief executive of the PGA, dropping in next year and announcing: “Sorry everyone, but we’re giving it to England or Sweden.”

Scotland has everything: the players, the courses, the spokesman, the heritage. At the launch of its bid last Thursday, Gavin Hastings was joined by Sam Galbraith and Rhona Brankin, two leading Government figures, by Paul Lawrie, by a silver-tongued Colin Montgomerie via video, and, later, by Lord Macfarlane of Bearsden, who is chairman of the company that owns Johnnie Walker. Scotland is where the game began. What could be more appropriate? The way they see it in Wales, that country could be more appropriate. It has the fervour, a country driven to new levels of self-confidence by staging the Rugby World Cup as well as having the proffered support of personalities as diverse as Catherine Zeta-Jones and the Manic Street Preachers. The implorings of these and others are led by Terry Matthews, a billionaire and one of the richest men in Europe, who is said by rivals to want the Ryder Cup to be held at Celtic Manor as a rich man’s bauble.

“I am not exactly dumb about money,” Matthews said. “I don’t get a bucket of it and throw it over the wall. I’ve got a 20-year commitment to the game already. I’ve got three courses here that will soon be four. I staged the PGA Cup. I am committed to supporting a Wales Open for five years and a soft commitment for a further 15.”

Millions and millions of pounds to stage the Ryder Cup payable to Ryder Cup Ltd? That is no problem to Scotland or Wales. Improve the facilities for golf in your country, widen the game’s base, bring it into schools, build new facilities? What Scotland indicated it could do last week, Wales will unveil on Tuesday. Scotland mentioned £24 million.

Wales, recently awarded £1.5 billion of Objective One European funding, the type of money that drove Ireland to become known as the Celtic Tiger when it received similar sums over the past six years, will announce £40 million.

Suddenly, bidding for the Ryder Cup, an event that generated £100 million in Boston, has grown hugely, like the competition. Much of the success of this is owed to the Irish. In 1998 it was announced that Ireland had been awarded the 2005 Ryder Cup, a lead-up period of seven years compared with four years for Valderrama in 1997. This was a brilliant stroke. It helped Ireland to come up with the £8 million that it had to pay for the right to stage the event, but it also enabled the PGA to ask for more money and over a longer period, too. Ireland’s £8 million has been increased to £10 million for the 2009 venue.

As the financial demands have increased, so too have the requirements laid down by the Ryder Cup Committee. To stage the Ryder Cup, a country must demonstrate a considerable commitment to improving the game, to boosting tourism, extending the game’s influence in schools and providing more pay-and-play facilities.

The deal in the summer of 1998 that was cooked up between Bord Failte, the Irish Finance Ministry and Ken Schofield, executive director of the European Tour, on the back of an envelope has now become a much more thorough and rigorous document.

The contest is as evenly balanced as a level seesaw. Scotland’s bid, driven by Hastings’s company, is helped by the presence of Lucinda Rivers, who is the only person from a bidding country to have experience of a previously successful bid. She worked on Ireland’s campaign for 2005.

If this is a slight advantage for Scotland, then against them is ranged the formidable figure of Matthews. No one roars louder or fights his corner harder than the man who was born on a part of what is now Celtic Manor.

“Giving the Ryder Cup to Wales would be a net gain for golf,” Matthews said. “Everyone knows about golf in Scotland. Wales are a nobody in golf. But this is a no-fooling- around bid. It is very significant. It will shock a lot of people in its seriousness.”

England unveil Ryder Cup bid

Mike Aitken, The Scotsman, 30 October 2000

North-East England’s bid for the 2009 Ryder Cup will be launched in London today with the support of the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, as well as official backing from the English Sports Council.

It is understood that in hard cash the plan based round Slaley Hall’s candidacy is worth even more to golf than the £24million pledged by the Scottish Executive when they launched their bid last week.

Applications to stage the biennial match between Europe and the USA in 2009 must be lodged with the Ryder Cup committee by tomorrow.

As well as Scotland and England, Wales and Sweden are also in the running. Although the north-east is ready to spend more than the Scots, the PGA has been keen to stress that the match is not an auction and will not be for sale to the highest bidder.

England, as a consequence, will have to demonstrate that they can find new ways to develop the game.

It will not help the cause of the north-east that since 1977, the match has been held on English soil no fewer than five times with the 2001 contest also due to be held at the Belfry.

That said, the English bid is being driven enthusiastically by Brendan Foster, and no one should underestimate his desire to bring the match to Northumberland.