Ryder Cup Washout

The excitement has been growing for weeks now and had been counting the days till the Ryder Cup. The tickets came through and the strategic planning begun.

We had decided to go down Thursday the day before so we could get up bright and breezy on the Friday. The plan was to be up by 5 out by 530 get to the buses early and try and race to the first tee. Here we could be apart if the fantastic atmosphere and see how they handle the immense pressure.

Well all best plans, we arrived at park and ride with the other 25000 people all with same idea and it was bouncing it down. After arriving at the course we had just 25 minutes to get to the 1st. This disappeared very quickly as there was at least a half hour walk to get there. We decided on setting up camp at the 5th green where there was a nice big screen where we could watch the action till the groups came round.

It was quite interesting to watch the greenskeepers at work on the green. They were moving the flag for the days position. Perfection is not the word, the process they went through was unbelievable, checking and double checking to make sure that the flag was perfectly straight.

The greenkeepers were kept busy for the next few hours as the rain kept coming and coming and coming. They cleared the greens as best they could but still the course became unplayable.

So we had travelled 4 hours on Thursday and stayed in a hotel, got up at 5 am only to not get near where we wanted to be, watched the play on a big TV (which we could of done at home) until the groups came through. Westwood, Kaymer, mickelson and Johnson came through then they decided to suspend play. Brilliant!!!

The rest of the day was waiting around wet through in the PGA tent for the news of re starting. By 2 o’clock we had enough and decided to call it a draw. We got back to the bus and got out of the torrential rain.

To make matters worst still we got back to the car to find it marooned by 6 inches of water. I paddled through had a change then set off back to Manchester. To but a tin hat on it the traffic was awful as you could imagine, M6 on a Friday afternoon. We got back just after 8 and I decided that going to the Ryder Cup this year was a very bad idea!

Has it put me off going again, well we will see?