Triumph of marketing hokum over sport

LockerRoom: Before we begin, pardon me. I know that I write as perhaps the only person in the First World who doesn't understand the charm of the Ryder Cup. When I make my biennial grumblings about the whole hoopla, I suffer bad dreams in which I am sometimes a Danish cartoonist selling my Mohammed cartoons on the streets of Islamabad.

Now listen. I love Padraig and Paul and Darren just like the rest of you do. I'm happy if they're happy, and should one of them ever win a major I will be partying, as Prince used to say, "like it's 1999".

I like a bit of golf occasionally and make a point of directing an annual whine towards the Sports Editor about his failure to get extra accreditations to the US Masters. All those magnolias and bougainvilleas. I have my clichés packed and ready.

What I don't understand is the Ryder Cup. What is it about the Ryder Cup that gets the sweatered classes into such a lather? Is it, as Lee Westwood once memorably said, "all about the honour of the, eh, Continent"?

Or is it all about the pleasure of being anti-American for four days? Me, I'm as anti-American as they come if we're talking about the baleful influence of trash culture or the wilful trampling of human rights conventions and the tendency to invade other countries.

Then again, when I'm watching The Simpsons it's a different kettle of fish, and if you want to surprise me with a free holiday, well, westward ho!

As such, as a lonely, pioneering dissident railing against the dangerous communal hysteria which attends the Ryder Cup, I was both pleased and amused at the recent palaver over proposals to stick the 2006 Ryder Cup on to the list of events which must be shown on "free-to-air" television under the auspices of the Broadcasting (Major Events Television Coverage, Amendment) Act of 2003, which, as you all know, is a spin-off from the Broadcasting (Major Events Television Coverage) Act of 1999.

Back in the deathly quiet of the silly season which is Christmas, a voice broke the tranquillity. Ho, ho, ho, said Noel Dempsey, he being the Minister for Communications, Marine, Natural Resources and Good Tidings.

Have I got news for you, he said. I have decreed that the Ryder Cup shall be free to air! Ye can all watch it without going to the boozer or forking cash to Rupert.

And great was the rejoicing and merriment, except in the offices of the European Tour and Sky Sports. And upstairs in the attic of my house, where I am confined, Anne Frank-like.

Wall-to-wall Ryder Cup coverage is a dispiriting prospect.

When we got to thinking, though, Minister Dempsey had encapsulated the entire opportunistic spirit of the Ryder Cup in one glib announcement.

The Ryder Cup is a crock, the greatest symbol of the triumph of marketing hokum over sporting content in the entire universe of modern sport.

In 1927, when the Ryder Cup was formally registered on the list of births, it was a nice idea whose time had come.

The tournament was the brainchild of James Harnett, a circulation manager for Golf Illustrated magazine, and the plan was to increase his magazine's circulation by establishing a regular fixture.

A sweethearted old seed merchant called Samuel Ryder was so taken with the genial nature of the thing that he put up a cup for the event, noting dreamily that: "I trust that the effect of this match will be to influence a cordial, friendly and peaceful feeling throughout the whole civilised world."

By "civilised world" we have come to understand those parts of the world from which Vijay Singh, Ernie Els, Adam Scott, Mike Weir, Retief Goosen, Nick Price, Greg Norman, David Frost, Mark McNulty and many others don't come.

A trophy was minted. Sam Ryder copped $100 for it. Golf Illustrated matched that and the Royal and Ancient dropped $50 into the pot. Without excessive fanfare the Ryder Cup was born.

The original format, enshrined in a long-since disregarded Deed of Trust, was four foursomes (alternate shots) matches played over 36 holes on day one, with day two turned over to 36-hole singles matches. A few hundred spectators turned up. The chaps wore jackets and ties all the way.

And that was it. America won easily. Again and again and again. Nineteen wins and one tie out of the first 23 stagings of the tournament. Nobody cared.

The competition was harmless but true to its roots, until Jack Nicklaus came up with the wheeze of adding the Rest of Europe to the mix. That set the suits all afrenzy.

In 1989, the rights to the Ryder Cup were sold to a cable network in the US for a mere $200,000. NBC liked the look of the figures, though, and bought in to the Ryder Cup and hyped it relentlessly thereafter.

Reality and tradition ceased to matter. The Ryder Cup would enter an era of Punch and Judy nationalism. Continental Landmass v Continental Landmass.

And this time it's personal!

The Ryder Cup became an adapted-for- television concoction which was lucky to survive the 1970s, but is now being milked as a cash cow.

In terms of modern sport or modern television, the Ryder Cup remains relatively small beer. NBC paid $4.5 million for Valderrama in 1997 and has stumped up $10 million per event for 1991, 2001 and 2005. For Sky and the European Tour, it's a bigger deal, of course, by virtue of the fact Sky and the European Tour are smaller deals than NBC.

Anyway, we're supposed to fork out the cash and root for Europe. Do a cancan. Toss my beret in the air. Annex Poland. Hug a humble goatherd from Uzbekistan.

All while 24 very wealthy men linked by nothing more than a common love of blazers play golf for three days for the honour of the, eh, Continent.

We won the rights to milk the sacred cow of Ryder Cupdom back in 1997. That was the guts of nine years ago. Many and paunched are the people about to make a massive killing on the thing. They are the usual bandits, but good luck to them. The spirit of the Ryder Cup is that our bandits are better than the other bandits.

Nine years. So what, then, was Minister Dempsey doing at Christmas announcing that he might stick the thing on RTÉ? What, then, have the ensuing battles and discussions and talks been about?

Making us look like Ryder Cup-class opportunists, is what.

If we wanted the Ryder Cup free-to-air we should have said so when we bid for it. We should have told the European Tour back then. And (godhelpus) Sky. They have a long-term contractual agreement.

The GAA announced some years ago that the All-Ireland football final was being moved to avoid a clash. Was there not some dim bulb flashing in a Governmental brain about rights?

If the Ryder Cup was genuinely seen as "being of major importance to society", as the Act suggests listed events should be, why have we not moved to list it before when various Irish golfers were fighting away on behalf of the, eh, Continent?

The Ryder Cup is about money. It's about hype and hokum. It belongs in RupertWorld. The pretence that it was ever going to be free-to-air was a nice stroke, beautifully played.