Short of news that Rees Jones is gassing up his bulldozer, nothing makes golf course architecture aficionados reach for the Pepto Bismol quite like a Ryder Cup, or more specifically, a Ryder Cup in Europe. While editions held in America still occasionally visit sublime course designs — The Country Club, Oakland Hills, Bethpage Black in two years — those staged in the old world offer a quadrennial reminder to purists that the Ryder Cup, like a presidential election, is now essentially a commercial enterprise.
As the economic importance and global stature of the event has grown, there’s been a commensurate dilution in the caliber of host courses on the eastern shore of the Atlantic. You have to scroll back more than 40 years to find one that earns near-unanimous praise for its design merit: Walton Heath, in 1981. In the years prior, the biennial battle visited Royal Lytham & St. Annes, Muirfield and Royal Birkdale, all Open Championship hosts of indisputable stature. Then, starting in the late ‘80s, Europe began to dominate, fans began to pay attention, broadcasters began to pay significant rights fees, and corporations began requesting ever-more extensive hospitality suites.
So for 30 years, Ryder Cups in Europe have illustrated the difference between a great golf course and a great venue. They’ve had plenty of the latter, none of the former. Marco Simone Golf and Country Club continues that tradition.
Early morning preparations are made prior to the 2018 Ryder Cup at Le Golf National on September 27, 2018, in Paris, France. (Photo by Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images)
The DP World Tour owns a sizable chunk of the Ryder Cup, and proven loyalty to the circuit is a factor when it comes time to award its most prized asset. The Belfry (’85, ’89’ ’93) held its first European tour event in 1979. Valderrama (’97) had been a regular tour stop for almost a decade. So too for the K Club (’06), Celtic Manor (’10) and Gleneagles (’14). Le Golf National (’18) paid its dues even longer.
An alert, ambitious developer will spot a sure-fire, if long-term strategy for securing golf’s premier team event: build a course with ample room for infrastructure, offer terms favorable to the suits at HQ in Wentworth, then wait a decade. The Ryder Cup is a prize earned, not an honor bestowed.
Talk to enough people who play golf for a living and you’ll learn that most see the course merely as a stage upon which great actors perform. For idealistic design…
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