For many golf fans, the Ryder Cup is the date on the calendar which will have been circled several times in the most permanent of markers.
No event in men’s golf seems to capture the imagination quite like the Ryder Cup. So many players have become legendary figures because of what they have achieved in the event, while it seems to strike a chord with the players like nothing else. Few will forget the emotional interview that Rory McIlroy gave as Europe headed for a record defeat at Whistling Straits in 2021.
But the Ryder Cup is not perfect in the eyes of some.
Of course, there is no escaping the fact that winning an away Ryder Cup has become one of the toughest challenges in golf. In the last 20 years, just one away team has emerged victorious.
The PGA Tour told they have an amazing opportunity to grow an event bigger than the Ryder Cup
No losing team has got more than 11.5 points in any of the last five stagings of the Ryder Cup. And it seems that some think that there is a chance that the Presidents Cup could become the bigger event in the future – if the PGA Tour acts.
Speaking on Golf Channel following the announcement that Brandt Snedeker and Geoff Ogilvy will captain their respective teams next year at Medinah, Shane Ryan claimed that the Presidents Cup has the greater potential.
“I’ll put it this way, I think the Ryder Cup is lucky that the Presidents Cup still has a lot of matches and that the Americans have won so many in a row, so that superficially, they can say oh, we’re still the better competition. Because the reality on the ground is the Presidents Cup is more fun, it’s closer over the last decade and it’s more intriguing and has more crazy things happen than a Ryder Cup has. So I agree with you, I think they should reduce the matches,” he said.
“I think there’s things they can do to make it better, it would surely be great if the International team could actually win one. But I think right now the Ryder Cup is on the back foot. All that happens is the home team wins and blowout every single year. I think the PGA Tour has an amazing opportunity here to forever go above and beyond the Ryder Cup if they just make a few tweaks and I think they really should.”
The Presidents Cup has such a long way to go
It is hard to imagine many will agree with Ryan’s view. Ultimately, the Presidents Cup is a long way off being as exciting as the Ryder Cup – even if the latter has not delivered a particularly close match for some time.
Firstly, the fact that there was any drama at the 2023 Ryder Cup is telling. Europe raced into a 9.5-2.5 lead over the first three sessions and appeared to have every chance of moving to within a point of victory before the Sunday singles.
And yet, it was Tommy Fleetwood in match 11 who ended up winning the cup for Luke Donald’s side after a spirited fightback. If that event can leave fans on the edge of their seat, then almost every single Ryder Cup has the potential to do so.
Meanwhile, the atmosphere on the opening day at Royal Montreal at the most recent Presidents Cup was so underwhelming that Tom Kim actually criticised it later in the week. That was an event where the Internationals appeared to have so much going for them, and yet, it was such a poor start – before the number of matches became a real problem for Mike Weir’s men.
The event will be transformed if the Internationals do win a few times in the coming years. However, it would surely still have a long, long way before the gap to the Ryder Cup substantially closed.
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