Almost every sport, even the dullest and boring, has one event that enjoys such a good atmosphere, that it makes the sport, at least for a brief period, actually watchable.
For American football, it’s the Super Bowl, for athletics it is the Olympics and for cricket, it is the IPL.
For golf, it’s the Ryder Cup.
A competition that takes place every two years, the Ryder Cup differs from normal golf tournaments in that instead of each golfer playing for themselves, it is a competition between two teams – Team USA and Team Europe.
So unlike regular golf that is dull and boring, in the Ryder Cup you are given the chance to cheer on your team as players work together to further their team and defeat their opponents. And the crowd really do cheer – it becomes something akin to a scene out of Happy Gilmore as the crowd scream for their side, even as the golfers play their strokes.
Team Europe having emerged victorious two years ago in Cardiff, they now went to Chicago (the venue alternates each time) to try and defend their title.
After day one is wasn’t looking too good – Team USA had a 5-3 lead and by the end of day two the lead had increased to 8-4, and only stemmed at that because of a magnificent finish by Ian Poulter who managed consecutive birdies on the last five holes!
So it came down to the final day, 12 points available meaning that without taking into account draws, we could only lose 4 matches and needed to win the other 8 to draw things 14-14 – thus allowing us to retain the Ryder Cup as the current champions.
Again, everything hung on Ian Poulter who was the only early starter to be trailing his opponent. If he could pull it back, there would still be hope for Team Europe to make their greatest comeback ever, but if he lost it would be all over.
By this point, the NFL had kicked off with the 49ers via the Jets, so my live blog of the game includes updates from both the NFL game and the Ryder Cup.
19:01:39
Poulter needs to win his game if Team Europe is to have a chance. Meanwhile, the @49ers will start from the half way line.
Somehow, Poulter did pull it back, gaining the valuable point for Team Europe, and our other golfers put in a magnificent performance too to bring things all level.
It all game down to the final two games, Kaymer v Striker and Molinari v Woods. On the last hole Kaymer managed to clinch the victory, ensuring we had at least equal points to Team USA, meaning that they wouldn’t take the trophy away from us!
As it happens Tiger Woods went on to miss a put that allowed Molinari to tie the game, and thereby give us a one point lead! This was bad news for the bookies who ended up losing a huge amount of money (money they wouldn’t have lost if it had ended 14-14).
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Tags: chicago, golf, ian poulter, ryder cup, sport
This entry was posted on Saturday, October 13th, 2012 at 11:20 am and is filed under Distractions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.