Spectator Sport
Ryding for a Fall
Remember the Wightman Cup? For anyone under 40, this was the annual women’s tennis tournament between Britain and the US, which eventually passed away, largely unmourned, at the end of the 1980s. The reason? Extreme lack of interest. Not just among the audiences, but the players too. We were all tired of Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova and Pam Shriver coming over and ripping apart, say, Jo Durie, Anne Hobbs and if memory serves the now lustrously big-haired Annabel Croft. Year after year after year.
Now I don’t want to sound mad but I think there is a real danger that the Ryder Cup, reconvening next week in Kentucky, could go the same way. So here are five reasons why even the greatest Europhiles should want America to reclaim Sam Ryder’s elegant golden goblet.
1. Europe has won five of the last six tournaments, so a victory for the Americans would be a nice change. And it would keep the Cup alive. Our transatlantic cousins tend not to like being underdogs, so they might just storm off in a huff if they don’t win, and concentrate on games nobody else plays — baseball and American football. We owe it to the world to keep America’s spirits up — and the Ryder Cup alive.
2. For the sake of Mrs Doubtfire, who found out via a courtesy voicemail from Nick Faldo that he had not been picked. You would have to have a heart of stone not to hope that a rare smile plays across Colin Montgomerie’s face as he and Gaynor sit in their Perthshire mansion to watch Hunter Mahan, as it might be, sink the winning putt for the US on Sunday afternoon. It was Mahan of course who moaned that the Ryder Cup players were treated like slaves because they don’t get paid and have to go out to endure free slap-up dinners.
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Bernard Darwin
September 11th, 2008 2:15pmIt is extraordinary that this contest - between a country and a continent - arouses European 'patriotism'. At least the Yanks have got a flag.
Dave Wild
September 12th, 2008 9:56amI too would like to see the European golfers fail, but for a different reason. I remember in 2006 at the BBC Sports Awards, the Ryder Cup Team was beaten into second place by the St. Helens Rugby League Team. The golfer’s arrived arrogantly assuming that victory was a formality. Their reaction to the result was one of incredulity. Instead of taking the defeat on the chin, as professional sportsmen should, they proceeded to deride the Rugby League Team. This is the single most disgraceful display I have ever heard of at any awards ceremony.
The contrast between the two sets of sportsmen was astounding. The tough men of Rugby League, so humble in victory, compared to the pampered prima-donnas of golf, so petulant in defeat.
Bless the BBC – they actually changed the voting system subsequently to ensure that never again will an ‘establishment’ sport be beaten by one from the proletariat.