Bland Gleneagles Course No Issue as Players and Fans Build Ryder Cup Atmosphere

GLENEAGLES, Scotland — A popular line this week at the Ryder Cup is that the PGA Centenary Course at Gleneagles is the fourth best golf course in Auchterarder.

The joke, of course, is that there are only four golf courses in Auchterarder.

Despite its Jack Nicklaus-designed credentials, you will struggle to find too many avowed fans of this week’s venue for the Ryder Cup, a venue first opened in 1993. It is a very Americanised, stadium-style layout that seems slightly incongruous for the heart of Scotland; for many it is approaching sacrilege that the Ryder Cup would come back to Scotland for the first time in 41 years and then not be played on a traditional links course.

There are two links-type layouts at the Gleneagles resort (the resort is inland, so cannot technically be a links), with Auchterarder Golf Course not far away. But the fact the event is being played on the Centenary speaks to the very specific demands of hosting a Ryder Cup, demands that mean the quality of the course and its prestige is not highest on the list.

To understand it, you have to realise how important the Ryder Cup is to the European Tour, one of the controlling organisers. As ESPN reported this week, the Ryder Cup essentially subsidises the European Tour’s running costs for the years in which there is no competition.

As Bob Harig wrote:

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In simple terms, the European Tour loses money in non-Ryder Cup years, makes a tidy profit in years the event is played in the United States and then hits the lottery in years the tournament is staged in Europe.

Earlier this year, Golfweek reported that the European Tour made more than 14 million pounds in pre-tax profit in 2010, the last time the Ryder Cup was staged in Europe. A year later, when there was no Ryder Cup, it lost more than 2.2 million pounds.

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With the event so important to organisers, maximising revenue streams—tickets, corporate sales, merchandising—becomes vitally important. This is made harder by the relative lack of golf to actually sell (unlike the four majors it is only a three-day event, while the 28 matches overall equates to about a morning’s play at any one of them).

With that in mind, the fact that 250,000 fans are expected to walk the course this week, a figure better than most Opens, speaks to some impressively creative planning. It speaks to sacrificing the quality of the course to pick one with bigger and better viewing areas; the Centenary course has natural amphitheatres at nearly every hole, allowing many more spectators than the average links course to get a view of the action.

That is why around 10,000 could (and did) surround the first hole in the early hours of Friday morning, and why another five-figure crowd was able to flank the par-five 16th on Saturday morning when Rory McIlroy and Ian Poulter’s enthralling fourball against Rickie Fowler and Jimmy Walker was the only match on the course. Even in general, the galleries are deeper than at any major championship, bar perhaps the last few holes on a Sunday.

The trade-off in that dynamic is the quality of the course. On Friday, strong winds made the conditions very difficult for players—with putting and chipping invariably making the scoring poorer than some expected. The weather was creating the test, rather than the track.

On Saturday, however, with slightly warmer temperatures and calmer conditions, the players exposed the golf course for the rather straightforward challenge it is. The first match of the day saw records tumble; Justin Rose and Henrik Stenson were 12-under in their 3&2 fourballs win, with Bubba Watson and Matt Kuchar’s nine-under effort making it the lowest combined match score in tournament history.

“What a team,” Kuchar said of the European duo. “It was impressive what they were doing, just birdie after birdie.

“I think we counted 10 in a row—awfully tough to beat that.”

More and more red numbers followed—even in the afternoon foursomes, a format that does not traditionally lend itself to comfortable scoring. When the wind is down, for the players it becomes target golf of the easiest kind. It is a bland canvas, with the players creating the drama themselves.

That flurry of scoring helped to bolster an already energetic atmosphere, with roars erupting around the course as players from each side responded with punch and counter-punch. When the final fourball of the morning reached the 18th the crowd were in full voice, thanks in part to Ian Poulter’s chip-in (for a half) at the 15th and subsequent birdie (to get the match back to A/S) at the 16th.

By the 18th of that match, even Michael Jordan seemed buzzed by the atmosphere.

That excitement did not come without its disadvantages, with players complaining about the widespread use of mobile phone cameras at inopportune moments. At least the chanting and cheering remained well within what would be considered tasteful and respectful, with the course perhaps quieter than it was at Medinah two years ago.

While many fans wanted to be loud and proud, you sensed many struggled to reconcile that approach with the usual Scottish standards of etiquette at a golf tournament.

“I thought the crowd were really, really good today,” Rose noted on Friday. “Apart from phones, I've got to say, cameras and phones were pretty poor out there for what I would class as a very knowledgeable golf crowd.

“Maybe at the Ryder Cup it is not as educated a golf crowd as normal, [as an] Open Championship crowd.”

It has not been a normal golf crowd, but then this is not a normal golf event—and perhaps that it is why it is being played on what few would deem to be a "normal" British championship course.

All quotes obtained firsthand.