Living in Yorkshire we know all about having pride in one’s identity. The rivalry with Lancashire dates back to the War of the Roses and even now our University does figurative battle with its Lancastrian counterpart each year on the sports field.
This feeling of pride, and of belonging, is something every Brit is familiar with – there are rivalries between cities, between counties and between countries across Great Britain. To see the whole country come together and feel as one is rare enough – it took the Olympics this summer for the English, Irish, Welsh and Scots to all feel unified, at least for a couple of weeks, so when could we ever possibly feel European?
Europe is a big place, we’re stuck out on some island not particularly close, and it has Germany and France in it – it seems almost impossible for something to make us feel like unified Europeans. The Ryder Cup, however, is a very rare thing, and can do just this.
I’m not saying that the Ryder Cup suddenly stirs up great spirit within every European when it comes around every two years, but what it does is get us Brits cheering on Germans, Spaniards, Belgians, you name it, as if they were our own.
The idea of getting an Englishman, a Scot, a German and a Belgian together in one room to watch the European side hole the winning put in the Ryder Cup and know that they would celebrate together as a team, no matter the nationality of the man on the end of the putter, is something special. However, it is not only this that makes it such a rare sports tournament.
There’s more – the Ryder Cup is also rare in that it is a tournament that never disappoints. It is superb time after time; there is constant drama, tears of both varieties, each edition has its own story worthy of telling.
You could say the same for just a few other tournaments – the Olympic and Paralympic Games are obvious examples, but they’re cheating. Both the Olympics and Paralympics offer two weeks’ worth of every sport you could wish for, the Ryder Cup is just three days of golf.
You might say the likes of the football World Cup and Wimbledon are worthy of this accolade, and I’m not going to tell you these ones are cheating. The last World Cup, however, was good, no more -and good, for a tournament we only see once every four years, is a little disappointing. Wimbledon’s great, but there’s no affinity there – even if your favourite player wins you don’t feel like you’re a part of something.
There is the way that a tiny white ball dropping into a tiny white hole can produce such a deafening roar, from being able to hear a pin drop moments earlier.
There is the fact that the Ryder Cup is not just golf. Whilst the World Cup is still football and Wimbledon is still tennis, both as we know them, the Ryder Cup is a totally different animal to any golf you could ever see outside of it – ask anyone who’s played in it.
“The Ryder Cup is a great spectacle but an exhibition at the end of the day and it should be there to be enjoyed. In the big scheme of things it’s not that important to me.” This was Rory McIlroy before his first Ryder Cup in 2010. After winning however, it wasn’t long before he was photographed doing jägerbombs out of the famous trophy and telling everybody he could not have been more wrong.
“It’s the most amazing energy, electricity and adrenalin rush you’ve ever had,” said another European team member, Ian Poulter, just days ago.
There is the event’s history; those magical moments that make winning more and more important every year – Sam Torrence in 1985 and Graeme McDowell just two years ago to name but two iconic singles wins for fans of the European team.
Oh, and there’s the prospect of beating the Yanks too. They don’t really lose at the sports they’re good at, apart from this one.
Combine all of this and more and you’ve got a hint of why the Ryder Cup is so unique. And if you’re one of those who think golf is just ‘boring’, well this isn’t just golf.
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