I fell in love with the Ryder Cup

I am in no way in a position to express informed opinions about golf. I have been to the driving range some times but my swing is as erratic and hilarious as Diego Maradona’s reactions. I used those putting practices spaces but putting is much more difficult than it looks. I don’t even watch the sport on TV so often (usually the majors but also there has to be involved a player I liked).

But this weekend I watched the Ryder Cup and fell in love with it. It’s a shame I couldn’t watch it live yesterday (the deciding fourth day) but I just caught the highlights. Of course, the nail biting finish with Europe regaining the cup by beating the US 14 ½ - 13 ½ and the event being decided at the last match (almost the last hole) providing an absolutely compelling viewing certainly helped. It was great drama as sports can create. It is not exactly golf’s World Cup because only Europe and the US play it. However, it has an amazing feeling about it. There is big rivalry that in the past went a bit too far.

In the more ‘technical’ note, I like that the competition tests the player in different ways. In the four-balls, the hole is won by the best score of the four players and therefore your partner can save you if you have a bad hole. In the foursomes, each pairing plays with one ball with the players taking turns in the shots. An individual sport like golf becomes a team sport. And finally, in the match plays each member of each team play against one of the other team in an individual confrontation.

Here you can see the highlights from the Official Ryder Cup website

This time there were incredible performances I particularly enjoyed. For the US, Tiger Woods started the weekend not so well (and in the first matches was carried by the excellent Striker) and after suffering a trashing in the second session recovered like a true champion in the last match (at some point he scored birdie-birdie-birdie-eagle-birdie). Rickie Fowler showed that he is a start of today at only 21 years-old halving his single match recovering from 4 down wining the last 3 holes and keeping the American dream live to the last single match-play. For Europe, I enjoyed Luke Donald’s almost unflappable display, Ian Poulter exuberant performance the last day, Miguel Angel Jimenez playing with the usual charm and charisma and the Molinari brothers playing together.

A thought for Hunter Mahan: he was the unlucky guy to lose the last match. But no disgrace for him, he played really well for the whole weekend and with a lot of nerve in the last match but was just beaten by Graeme McDowell who was unbelievably solid considering what was at stake.

And I used to think golf was a boring sport... Long live the Ryder Cup!!!

Did you like the Ryder Cup?