Ryder Cup – what a fiasco!
The PGA hype machine has been building up the Ryder Cup all year. Only to end up with a fiasco.
* First the European sites for the Ryder Cup are based on the highest bidder. So this year it was held on the famed 2010 course at Celtic Manor. Wow.
* Next it was scheduled later than its ever been held. This was so the FedEx Cup could be held in its entirety first. Remind the FedEx Cup? I believe someone won that a couple weeks ago.
* They had lots and lots of rain in Wales, which isn’t unusual, but we learned that the 2010 course forgot to add drainage. This in turn led to the schedule being changed, which is fine, except that people tried to keep this a secret. Watched the matches Sunday, and didn’t hear a peep about when the singles would be held. You’d think the Ryder Cup web site would provide the details. No, for some reason, they didn’t feel it was important to display the new schedule; as I write this the schedule on the site still shows that single matches were played Sunday.
* I tried watching the live Internet coverage several times, from different computers. Got nothing but a black screen. Until Monday morning, when I watched it for about 10 minutes until the feed ended due to “technical difficulties”.
* I went to the Internet on Monday to watch the finishing matches because there was no US TV coverage. Apparently if I’d gotten up at 3:30 AM, I could have watched some coverage on Fox Sports Network, but by 8 AM they and other sports channels had more important things to cover. (FSN has a show on the MN Vikings (who had a bye yesterday), TGC was showing replays of the Nationwide Tour event, etc.) Didn’t they get the memo from the PGA hype machine about the worldwide importance of this event?
* There was a Ryder Cup app for the iPhone. Appeared to get some of the worst reviews I’ve ever seen for any app.
Pretty poorly run operation all around… I hope the PGA of America and R&A are suitably embarrassed.
