FARMINGDALE, N.Y. — You have to admit it, the buildout is impressive.
When the broadcast drones cruise over the oak trees at Bethpage Black, the immensity of what a Ryder Cup is comes into full view. What isn’t green is white, red and just massive. Hospitality tents and grandstands shoot into the sky. It’s absolutely necessary, too, if the PGA of America wants to do right by the 30, 40 or 50 thousand that show up each day.
Increased security and police presence will be a story of the week. Unruly fans may become another. There is no event in golf quite like this one, and you’ll have no problem finding it. Your Instagram feed will be chock full of 1st tee videos before you crack an egg for breakfast.
But there’s an interesting question that hangs over all that modern, major sporting event flavor: What’s more important to the Ryder Cup — its size or its soul?
We have asked our sporting leaders and governing bodies variations of that question for years. FIFA’s World Cup immediately comes to mind, as its competition has nearly doubled in size for next year, as it considers dynamic pricing, and as it commits to sports-drunk-but-endlessly-wealthy Saudi Arabia for 2034. (One could easily see the Saudi PIF as a global sponsor of the Ryder Cup some day.)
For now, Saudi money is being spent on advertising this week, inside the Long Island Rail Road train cars carrying golf sickos to Bethpage.
“IF TEAM GOLF IS YOUR THING” the advert reads. “YOU’LL LOVE OUR THING.”
If any creative marketers have a decent budget and an eye on golfers, they’re spending this week. The People’s Plaza located on-site is filled by five imbibing activations. There’s a Michelob Ultra tent next to Tito’s (Vodka) Golf Club, next to the Elijah Craig Speakeasy, across the way from the Gosling’s Rum’s Leisure Lounge and William Hill’s not-so-creative “Wine Lounge.” (Luckily, the Gatorade Hydration Station is just around the corner.)
It’s 27 miles as the golf ball flies from that People’s Plaza to Rockefeller Plaza, in the heart of Manhattan, which turns into “Ryder Cup Live” on Thursday, grasping for attention in the world’s busiest city. On Tuesday morning, the speakers and seats and signs were still being set up, but there’s already a BMW sedan in place for Captain Keegan — the 7 — and a different beamer parked next to it for Captain Luke, the i7. Scan the QR Code to find out more while you watch the golf on the big screen and gaze upward at 30 Rock.
Almost every incoming email the past few weeks has seen some new corner of the Cup getting carved up by another brand. Five Iron is debuting its newest New York location this week. A gambling company is hawking its supercomputer’s newest analysis, that Team USA has a 57 percent chance of winning. The latest email arrived Tuesday afternoon: Good Good Golf will be collaborating with the newfound show, “Breakfast at Bethpage,” produced by Omaha Productions and Pro Shop Studios, leading blindfolded putting competitions and other challenges during the morning of the event.
And you know what, skeptics? People will watch. (Ed. note: Another activation email arrived during the writing of this article, for a Skratch event Friday in the city, headlined by the newest technology and products from Hyperice.)
But is it all necessary? Is bigger always moving us in a direction of better? In the age of player empowerment, immense TV rights valuations, $750 tickets and a rapidly dwindling number of locations the Cup can even be hosted — we can’t be so sure. Does all of this fit what Seve Ballesteros, Sam Ryder, Arnold Palmer, et al would have wanted?
Like clockwork, each Ryder Cup arrives bigger, in some way, than the last. Each bit of newness feels special in the moment, and normal two years later. This year’s ticket prices were higher than ever, and drastically more than Rome in 2023. Rome was the first time the event had been played in Italy, on a golf course (and surrounding neighborhood) made precisely for it. The 2021 buildout of hospitality at Whistling Straits — during a Covid-impacted event, no less — made the 2018 France Ryder Cup look paltry. But the 1st tee grandstand in the French countryside made the 1st tee at Hazeltine seem infantile. A suitable reminder exists below.
One thing I’ll never forget: the man @McIlroyRory, in his arena, thousands chanting the one word that matters. pic.twitter.com/moF9oTiowk
— Sean Zak (@Sean_Zak) September 30, 2018
As exciting as this 2025 Cup has been in the lead-up, numerous players and their teams have intimated a soft weariness at what might come of this week, and that was before President Trump decided to attend. After months of ominous “We’ll sees,” Rory McIlroy said it out loud to The Guardian:
“I think it’s inevitable something is going to happen in New York,” McIlroy said. “It might not involve me, but it is inevitable that something will happen, whether like in Rome last time or something else.”
It makes obvious sense. The bigger the crowd, the easier it is to blend into the noise. The more expensive the ticket, the more entitled one may feel to cross a theoretical line. Who draws the line? Who really knows! But there doesn’t seem to be much slowing this train down, particularly as the Cup continues to go to the biggest cities across the world — and in the case of Europe, at least, almost exclusively where the government has agreed to help subsidize the proceedings.
It took years for the DP World Tour to choose Barcelona as the host for the 2031 Cup … coincidentally once the local Catalonia government fully committed to funding part of the cost. But it will require all kinds of transportation changes in the surrounding area, not to mention real, physical changes to the golf course. In the same way no city is able to host the Olympics without tearing things down, moving them around and building them back up, there’s an extremely short list of courses the PGA and DPWT would consider Ryder Cup Ready. So let the bidding begin! And fully accept the results when competing parties campaign for London to host in 2035. Just don’t expect to feel much connection to the course, which may not even exist yet.
If it feels odd to worry this much about Ryder Cups in the 2030s, it might be because this growth has been quite linear. And how much more room is there to grow? The 1980s marked this event’s potential in competitiveness and were abruptly capitalized upon in the 1990s. It was just 1999, when American captain Ben Crenshaw pleaded with Tiger Woods and others to quell their need for compensation.
“It’s not greed,” Woods said back then. “It’s the fact we want to help out. We want to donate money to our charities in our local areas. There’s so much money being generated at the Ryder Cup, it’s become a corporate event.”
That quote is playing a bigger role than normal this week as: 1) it was rather prophetic; and 2) American players have finally seen their compensation moved “into 2025,” as captain Bradley put it. Each American player and captain earns $300,000 to charities of their choosing, as well as a $200,000 stipend to do with what they please … for the very first time.
The issue is a real Rorschach Test for anyone who cares about this event. It’s a pretty flimsy argument that the Cup should just continue growing in perpetuity, and not directly benefit the players at an increasing rate, too. It’s also pretty reasonable (and simple!) to see how money has completely torqued every corner of this sport in recent years. Keeping one of its most cherished events greed-free might feel good for everyone involved. (Or most of everyone.) It’s going to be difficult to tell the hard-working fathers of the Twin Cities that the family vacation fund will look a bit lighter in 2029 if he wants to bring everyone out to Hazeltine. It’s also pretty hard to tell the PGA of America accountants to relax on the price gauging when they just reached their goal of selling souped-up, $10,000-per-day Metro Club packages to the kind of people who want to arrive via helicopter.
All of that mashed together is where we are with the Ryder Cup. We can enjoy the hell out of it for the next few days, but not without wondering where it’s going.
