To the Manor boys

It all began with an unexpected phone call. Having settled down on the sofa to spend my Saturday evening watching a distinctly uninspiring episode of Match of the Day, my mobile rang with an incoming call from my friend Josh. Knowing him to be at work during this hour, I was somewhat surprised, but quickly answered; glad to be reprieved of Mark Lawrenson’s monotonous drone if only for a moment. Pleasantries out of the way, Josh then asked me what my plans were for the following day. Now, this was somewhat suspicious given the fact that he knew full well that I had nothing to do the next day, but nonetheless I humoured him. Then came the hammer blow:

“Fancy going to the Ryder Cup?”.

Those six sweet words that every golf fan longs to hear were finally being uttered to me, and upon hearing them…….. I had no idea how to respond. So I went with what came naturally to me: scepticism. 

“You’re kidding???”  – “No, I’m not” – “You’re kidding” – “No I’m honestly not” – “Yes you are you lanky pr***” .  And so forth.

Once my hectoring mistrust eventually subsided, Josh explained to me that some generous (idiotic) woman entrusted with a pair of tickets for the final day’s play, had eaten dinner at the hotel at which he works, and then unbelievably offered them as a tip to the staff. Perhaps even more unbelievably, Josh was the only one amongst them to show any interest in the tickets. Then, in what can either be described as an act of unwavering loyalty to the Cowley Manor Sunday shift pattern, or (as I like to think) a true sacrifice of biblical proportions, Josh offered the tickets to fellow golf fanatic Sam Coote and myself.

So after a couple of hours of snatched sleep, we set sail (drove) to Celtic Manor Golf Resort at 6am Sunday morning with tickets in hand, or around neck as was literally the case, for what we thought would be the final day of the 2010 Ryder Cup. The journey was only an hour long, and was spent equally divided between eulogizing Josh, and then repeatedly exclaiming our own pure disbelief that we were actually on our way to the greatest event in all of sport. It was perhaps for this reason that we turned somewhat of a blind eye to the rapidly increasing rainfall outside – which by the time we had arrived at Celtic Manor cast a striking resemblance to a small monsoon.  We were soon met with news that play had been suspended until 1:30; fortunately for us, the literal interpretation of ‘every cloud has a silver lining’ was now applicable, in that once the weather improved we would get to see golf in the afternoon, and our tickets would remain valid for the singles matches now put back to Monday.

And so at around 1:00, still in high spirits, we finally ventured on to the course and made our way to the stand located directly behind the sixth green, where after half an hour of gentle banter with some overexcited Italian fellows, we settled down to watch some golf. Stewart Cink had a lip out from the bunker in the very first group we saw, and that somewhat set the tone for a fabulous standard throughout the rest of the day. It’s widely considered that the Ryder Cup heaps a different kind of pressure on its competitors; one unparalleled throughout any other sport, let alone any other golf event. However, that Sunday the pressure was channelled into some wonderful performances, and as a spectator it seemed like at times there were hour long intervals between bad shots. Yet if the quality of the golf was flawless, there were one or two slight complaints to be had by Sam and myself about some of the patrons.  Clearly, knowing the full rulebook of golf should be no pre requisite to spectating, but it became somewhat painful to repeatedly overhear the uneducated crowd make idiots of themselves. Particular highlights included the man who simply couldn’t wrap his head around the concept that being 3up with three holes to play didn’t guarantee a win. And of course, there was the delightful lady who continually stung our ears when shouting “good shot lee!”…. every time Luke Donald hit a shot. Cynicism aside, we had a great day and I didn’t even have the heart to pocket the fiver dropped by the person in front of me as we were walking out. I ran after him and returned it, safe in the knowledge that it was a small price to pay for a free Ryder Cup ticket. In other heart-warming news, Europe now held a three point advantage over the U.S. going into the Monday singles. Victory was surely a foregone conclusion…

Arriving on the course bright and early the next morning, it became immediately apparent that media fears over the Monday finish limiting crowd numbers were completely erroneous. The whole course was rapidly filling, and with singing and chanting rife, the atmosphere was already electric. Before long, all twelve matches were out on the course and the roars began to echo around Celtic Manor. The problem that Sam and I soon discovered is that it is in fact very very difficult to be in the right place at the right time given such a format. We left the Woods vs Molinari match, and five minutes later Tiger holed his shot from 150 yards. Similarly, we walked away from the Ian Poulter match just mere moments before he holed out from 50 yards for an eagle. But such are the vagaries of Ryder Cup golf; for every flash of pure inspiration, there lies a moment of pure brilliance around the corner and knowing this, we charged around the course trying to soak in every possible image. As we clambered up the bank by the 15^th hole, a glance at the leaderboard told us that things had started to become close, uncomfortably close. After a slow start to the day, the United States were fighting back brilliantly, and snatching an unlikely win was suddenly no longer out of the question. A quick spot of mental arithmetic told us that there was a good chance that – ceteris paribus – it would all come down to the last match, so we raced to the 13^th green to see what was happening in the crucial encounter which pitted Graeme Mcdowell  up against Hunter Mahan.

It didn’t take long for others to comprehend just how important this match would prove to be, and by the time the players reached the 14^th green there seemed to be a small army of fans surrounding them hemming them in. The stewards did quite a job in creating a pathway for the players to go through to get to the next tee, but in their anxiousness to ease the swelling crowd they lowered the ropes too soon, and two carts had yet to pass through; one of them containing captain Montgomerie. A couple of panic stricken moments passed before the stewards had realised what had happened, by which point Monty was incandescent with rage, his ostensible air of control utterly vanquished.  “LET ME THROUGH” he bellowed, “GET THAT GREEN CART OUT OF THE WAY NOW!!!!!” It probably shouldn’t have been funny, but amidst a scene of unbelievable tension and panic, I was almost uncontrollably hysterical. In fact it’s actually a real shame that none of the cameras picked up the incident, so you’ll just have to take my word for it that it happened.

Eventually the panic subsided and I made my way through in time to see Mahan hole a putt on the 15^th green that brought him back to just one down in the match. Having been separated from Sam on the previous hole, I decided to run down the 16^th hole to get a good sight of the players’ second shots to the green. Now, by this point the walkways alongside the fairways had depleted into soggy brown mush, but by some small miracle I kept my feet and then managed to get a spot by the rope exactly in line with where Mcdowell’s ball lay in the fairway. Mcdowell approached his ball side by side with a still visibly shaken Monty and began to take a few practice swings, but then an enormous collective groan came out from the crowd. News had come through that Rickie Fowler had come from 3 down with 3 to play to snatch an unlikely half in his match against Edoardo Molinari. Suddenly the equation had changed, a half no longer sufficed for Mcdowell, he needed to win this match. Now, if Mahan were able to beat Mcdowell over the final three holes, the Ryder Cup trophy would be retained by America. The hush amongst the crowd lasted probably only ten seconds, but it felt like an age. Then someone shouted “come on Graeme you can do it!”, hearing this Mcdowell started to wave his arms in urgency to get the crowd going again. The responding cheers were so deafening that my blood seemed to drop about 20 degrees in temperature; to be right there at such a moment was simply incredible.

 Somehow Mcdowell managed to compose himself and then hit a brilliant shot to within fifteen feet of the hole. As he strode towards the green, the barriers were lowered and the crowd charged on to the fairway to follow the players. With Mahan all but guaranteed his par, Mcdowell knew that he couldn’t be too aggressive with his putt. Peering between three sets of heads, I could just see the ball rolling very slowly across the green as a quick stroke of Mcdowell’s putter head sent it tentatively towards the hole, and then after an agonizing wait, it disappeared. The deafening noise returned and without warning I was hugging and high fiving complete strangers. It was the moment of the Ryder Cup and to experience it first-hand will leave an indelible mark on my memory.

Tags: Celtic Manor, Colin Montgomerie, Golf, Graeme Mcdowell, Ryder Cup