By John Berry
The 38th biennial Ryder Cup Matches tee it up next Friday at the Twenty Ten Course at the Celtic Manor Resort in Wales. A team of 12 American professionals will take on a team of 12 European professionals with zero money on the line but loads of prestige and honor at stake.
Team golf is unique in today”s world of professional golf and match play formats such as fourball (better ball) and foursomes (alternate shot) are even moreso. The Ryder Cup offers great golfing drama in a most different form of competition.
The course at Celtic Manor favors the home team Europeans in a number of ways and yet the American team may find the course to its liking too. Celtic Manor as a host course is the first ever Ryder Cup site that was built for the express purpose of hosting the matches.
Originally the property of coal magnate Thomas Powell in the 1700s, the manor and its surrounding acreage became a maternity hospital during World War II. In 1975, the entire entity was purchased by Sir Terry Matthews, an electronics executive who reportedly sold his business interests for an estimated $7 billion.
Matthews belonged to a private course in Florida that included amongst its membership noted golf course architect Robert Trent Jones Sr. Matthews connected with Jones and had him build the first golf course at Celtic Manor.
Some 10 years later, Jones”s son Robert II designed the resort”s third course, Wentwood Hills. In 2001, Matthews secured the bid for the 2010 Ryder Cup. Part of the deal was that the Twenty Ten Course would be designed by using nine of Wentwood Hills” most notable holes with another set of nine holes built by European Golf Design.
Holes one through five are new, then the sixth through the 13th are from the original course.
Except for the 15th hole, the remaining holes are new also. The revised course reopened in 2007. It plays to a par of 71 with the yardage stretched out to 7,378. The first 14 holes run along the River Usk, which borders the course. The final four holes finish up on a plateau. Only four holes on the Twenty Ten Course are without water.
Since 2008, the Twenty Ten has hosted a European tour event. This year Graeme McDowell won the Celtic Manor Wales Open. Two weeks later he parlayed that into victory in the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach.
Euro teammates Luke Donald finished third and Edoardo Molinari came in fourth. This is a pretty consistent trend by the European Tour as evidenced by past Ryder Cup sites like the Belfry, Valderrama, and the K-Club that also host annual circuit events. The Americans historically use major championship venues such as Oakland Hills, Valhalla, the Country Club and Medinah in 2012.
Unlike the British Open, which is played on links-style courses, the host course for European Ryder Cups is oftentimes played on a parkland course. Team USA should feel comfortable with the layout as it is like a traditional American course.
Expect European captain Colin Montgomerie to have the fairways narrowed at the 300 yard mark off the tee, territory frequented by the likes of Americans Dustin Johnson, Bubba Watson and Phil Mickelson.
The course also demands that the captains be certain to have control players tee off on the odd-numbered holes during the alternate shot format.
The odd holes include four of the five par threes, two relatively short par fives and the feast-or-famine par four 15th hole. For the bomber brigade on the American squad, they will definitely need to be accurate off the tee. There is too much water and there are a bunch of precision holes.
Tiger Woods is the ultimate wild card in this year”s Ryder Cup. Historically unmotivated by the Ryder Cup experience, Woods is coming off his worst season in 15 years. He could save a part of his season with a Tiger-like performance in the Cup. Plus he still has good memories of last year”s President”s Cup at Harding Park in San Francisco where he teamed up with Steve Stricker to post a 4-0 record. Finally, will Woods be able to find the fairway? If he doesn”t, or can”t, will Captain Corey Pavin have what it takes and sit Woods out of a session? I guess only time will tell.
As for who”s going to win, Langtry Farms PGA Director of Golf and three-time member of winning Ryder Cup teams, Johnny Pott, foresees a tight battle that in the end will result in an American win. Pott told me, “I think Tiger, Cink and Rickie [Fowler] are playing well and I”m sure the week off [from the tour championship] will do them a world of good. Both teams have players really playing great games at the moment. It will be interesting how Pavin pairs his players. I still think he has some real winners with Dustin [Johnson] and Bubba [Watson] and either of them will win with Tiger as a partner. None of them mind playing from outside the ropes.”
Pott concluded our Ryder Cup discussion by adding, “I still think the USA team will prevail.”
Speaking of prevailing, there was a nice article in the Ryder Cup preview edition of GolfWorld magazine about Johnny Pott and his 4-0 record in the 1967 Ryder Cup at Champions Golf Club in Houston.
The team was captained by golfing legend Ben Hogan and the U.S. team won by the most lopsided margin in cup history, retaining it by a 23 1/2 to 8 1/2 score.
The Ryder Cup tees it up for the 38th time this coming Friday in Wales. The American team won”t be as successful as Potts” 1967 team, but I do believe that the youth movement will be just enough for the USA team to retain the Cup by a razor-thin 15-13 margin. Of course, I could make it even easier to prognosticate by stating that whichever team makes the most putts will win, but that”s always a given at Ryder Cup matches. In the end, the thing I am most sure of is that it will be the most dramatic three days of golfing excitement we”ll see this year.
