Nine members of Europe's Ryder Cup team were among about 50 players, family and caddies chartering a plane back to Britain last night following the cancellation of the World Golf Championship in St Louis.
With scheduled services still badly disrupted and some airports - including New York's three and Boston - remaining closed, the quickest way to get home was for management company IMG to charter a private plane. The plane was scheduled to leave St Louis' international airport last evening and arrive in London around noon today.
The three remaining members of the European team not travelling are Sweden's Jesper Parnevik, Denmark's Thomas Bjorn and Germany's Bernhard Langer. Parnevik did not even reach St Louis and recalled how he ran for his life on Tuesday when two of the four hijacked planes were flown into the World Trade Centre in New York. Parnevik was close to the scene visiting a golf fashion designer and after sheltering in IMG's offices, ran to safety in Central Park. The flamboyant Swede has since driven home to Florida and expressed his hope that the Ryder Cup could go ahead, although he added he would fully understand if any of the American players did not want to travel to The Belfry.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/YVIRIOZQ35EWRPZXR27KGMO6YU.png)