WELCOME TO THE Ryder Cup, where money doesn’t talk, it yells Geddinthaholeee.
This event is so drenched in dollars it’s a bit bizarre that among the main talking points is the fact the American team are being paid for their appearance this week.
You’ll remember Pat without the Hat and all that business at Rome two years ago, when Sky Sports’ Jamie Weir reported that the American team room was fractured by an argument as to whether they should be paid for their appearances. Cantlay reportedly played without a hat in protest, which was the cue for thousands of European fans to doff their hats at him and sing, “Hats off, for your bank account.”
Cantlay denied the story, saying that he didn’t wear the hat as it didn’t fit him. Two years later, though, Cantlay is roaming around Bethpage beneath a baseball cap and with another half a million dollars to his name.
The American players are each being paid $500,000 to play this week by the PGA of America, the tournament’s co-organiser. $300,000 of this is to be donated to charity, while the players’ have been given another $200,000 “stipend.”
This is not unprecedented: each of the American players have been given $200,000 for their chosen charity since 1999. (20% of the PGA of America’s revenues are also paid to the PGA Tour, the elitist professional organisation currently doling out such eye-watering sums of money to the players on show this week.)
Keegan Bradley has said the American players are going to give their bonus 200k to charity too, though only Cantlay has actually identified the destination of his extra cash. The American players have braced at this line of questioning from European journalists all week, with Scottie Scheffler sarcastically calling it an “issue”, making his point with an accompanying rabbit ears gesture.
What is striking about all of this is the sheer pointlessness of it all: the Americans have fought for a relatively insignificant sum of money that they are now being guilted into giving to charity anyway.
The grandee of American golf punditry, Brandel Chamblee, has lamented the fact that America’s multi-millionaires can’t forsake money for just one week every second year, for the honour of representing their country.
The Europeans, by contrast, are claiming the high moral ground. Luke Donald says he phoned each of his 12 players asking whether they wanted to be paid this week, and all 12 independently told him no. Paul McGinley – Chamblee’s co-anchor on Golf Channel and an adviser to Donald and his team – has this week been acting as a kind of European ambassador to the United States and says the Europeans have chosen to be on the right side of history.
“That puts us on the right side of it and it bonds us with the European fans”, said McGinley. “Personally, I think they have made a massive mistake to push for this considering how much money is in the game.”
Europe have also been floating their hopes that the New York crowd will turn against their players if the Europeans make a fast start, with the payments providing the ignition for grievance.
It’s a seductive parable, we have to say, that those greedy Americans continue to care only about themselves while the Europeans continue to park their own egos to corral around a larger, more honourable purpose. But the whole story is also a testament to pro golf’s incredible ability to compartmentalise its own morality.
This may also be the reason the Europeans are so concerned about the hostility of the home crowd: the noise they make might frighten Europe’s high horses away.
Yes the players haven’t collected payment, but that’s not the only money Europe have thus far left on the table. They DP World Tour, for instance, haven’t yet collected the fines owed by LIV defectors Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton, for instance, a penalty for their decision to jump ship to the Saudi-backed circuit. Both have appealed the fines – as is their right – but that appeal will conveniently be heard after this Ryder Cup.
There’s nothing wrong with the European team deciding they want Rahm and Hatton, but it’s a double standard given the previous sidelining of their LIV-joining elders, including Graeme McDowell, Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter, Sergio Garcia, and Henrik Stenson, who lost the captaincy to Donald ahead of Rome for his move.
All of the above appeared in Europe’s terrific hype video paying homage to all of the past European players to have won on American soil, where these awkward kinks in the lineage were not remotely acknowledged.
To make the American players the avatars of American greed would be also to do a grave disservice to the awesome disengenuousness of the marketing of this week’s venue. Bethpage Black is a public course, and New Yorkers can play a full 18 holes for the guts of $75. And in a true exhibit of meritocracy, its all done on a first-come-first-served basis. You park your car in a numbered spot the night before you want to play, sleep it out overnight and then wait your turn from dawn.
Hence the slogan at the entrance, describing Bethpage as “The People’s Country Club.”
The sign greeting visitors at the Ryder Cup. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
Alas the Ryder Cup has destroyed this spirit by pricing the cheapest ticket for tournament days at $750 a pop. (For context, a Friday ticket in Rome two years ago were around $264.) Once you’re inside the gates, meanwhile, the cheapest beer you’ll buy is a 350ml can for $12. Pints are priced at $15.
Despite all of this, we have frequently heard this week heralded on broadcasts as “the people’s Ryder Cup.”
The truth is that this Ryder Cup is another of Wall Street’s playground.
Hence why it feels rather churlish to pick a dozen American golfers as the sole incarnation of golf’s mighty greed.
