Twenty million and ten years work wonders for Twenty Ten

CADDIE'S ROLE:THE LAST time I was at the site of the present Twenty Ten Course at the Celtic Manor Resort was in the last millennium and in a very different era of the game.

I was there to caddy, of course, but my week didn’t last long. My player at the time was the critical and vociferous New Zealander Greg Turner. He was at the stage of his career when he had had enough of diplomacy and probably enough of living in England in order to play the European Tour.

He had also had enough of playing “prestigious” golf tournaments on what he considered goat tracks. He played five holes of the course that had been designed by the brand named Robert Trent Jones Junior on the Tuesday of the event and decided to drive back to his Tour residence in Surrey and withdraw from the event, uninjured but in despair of the quality of course that was presented for the Wales Open and also at the time a bidder for the 2010 Ryder Cup.

Turner was fined for his candid public criticism of the course. He had resigned himself to easing out of competitive golf in Europe and so decided to go out with a bang rather than a whimper.

Wales was subsequently awarded the Ryder Cup and Celtic Manor was to be the host of the most popular golfing event in the world. Turner’s eyebrows were not the only ones to be raised. It became apparent that the Ryder Cup committee realised they needed to provide a course that met their standards.

What a difference a decade and £20 million makes. Good weather can colour even the most cynical caddie’s opinion about a course and location. But even with a critical eye and a golfer not really at his best I could not really find much wrong with the European Golf Design-crafted course.

We were there last week for the Wales Open and the sun shone from Wednesday till Sunday. The chances of the Ryder Cup in the first week of October enjoying such a glorious week of weather are extremely slim, but not impossible.

Last Tuesday it rained in Newport, not heavily, but it was enough to give an indication of how the course will cope with water. There were a lot of wet patches despite the playing areas being dry. So with any serious amount of precipitation in October I am not sure how well the course will hold it.

The greens are poa annua, like those at The K Club, where the event was last held in Europe. With a small amount of players traipsing on them during the event there should be no problem.

Ross McMurray’s new course at Celtic Manor, which is made up of nine of Trent Jones’s original 18, although vastly remodelled, is fundamentally a good golf course.

It is a very difficult test as last week’s relatively shortened course, in ideal weather conditions with little rough, proved. Graeme McDowell’s winning score of 15-under, is an indication of the type of golf you could expect if the weather was less kind.

It is typical of most tough courses. When you are playing well it looks to the spectator like a doddle. If you are slightly off it is severely punishing. With water very much in play on 10 of the holes and with shaved banks running into the water, there are plenty of opportunities to feed the fish with golf balls.

The finishing four holes are a clever mixture of a shorter risk/reward par four, a tough par four and three and a risk/reward par five to finish.

The final three holes could host more than the Millennium Stadium on the overlooking viewing banks, which will provide the dramatic atmosphere befitting the match-play spectacle.

Similar to our own Ryder Cup history in Ireland, with the determination of a wealthy and ambitious owner, hosting the biggest golf team event in the world is possible if you have an open cheque book.

They have even built a bridge at the cost of £2 million simply to provide access to the specially built Ryder Cup practice range. The bridge will have little use beyond October.

The depressed town of Newport is getting a much needed shot in the arm because of the local development around the event. The Welsh welcome is as warm and heartfelt as you will receive anywhere in the world.

Not even Greg Turner could objectively find fault.