Golf’s holy grail event – the Ryder Cup in Ireland – and the tourism winner is Ireland

Over the weekend, the focus of the golfing world turned to Ireland and the 2006 Ryder Cup at the “K” Club in County Kildare, with the Irish weather gave the Europeans the early advantage with not so favourable conditions predicted for the first day of play. 

The Europeans won the Cup for an unprecedented third straight time with Ian Woosnam’s side collecting 8.5 in the final day singles to win 18.5-9.5 to seal an emphatic victory, but with Ireland the clear tourism winner!

The Irish have been ‘hosts in waiting’ for many years and were clearly very proud and excited to finally have the opportunity to host this great golf tournament, which is now commonly regarded as the world’s third biggest sporting event with only the football World Cup and the Olympics having a greater standing. 

As the US and European teams jetted into Ireland last week with the likes of Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Sergio Garcia landing on the Emerald Isle, Ireland got a taste of the excitement ahead.

The arguments for holding the event in Ireland were manifold and from a golfing perspective Ireland’s case was certainly compelling. The country boasts no fewer than 440 golf courses, many of them world class championship standard, with no country of a comparable size that can boast a greater concentration of high quality championship links courses or such a diversity of fine parkland courses.

Ireland has also produced some of the finest ever Ryder Cup players including such greats as Christy O’Connor Senior and Junior, Fred Daly, Harry Bradshaw, Eamonn Darcy, Philip Walton and the more recent trio of heroes Darren Clarke, Padraig Harrington and Paul McGinley.

The Ryder Cup is a unique event, not only in golf but in world sport, in that it pits 24 of the world’s greatest golfers against each other in a matchplay format over three days with nothing but the honour of their respective teams at stake.

There is no prize money nor individual ranking points to be gained – just the shared honour and glory of a team victory.

In case you missed the Ryder Cup over the weekend, Tourism Ireland is running an innovative Ryder Cup Golf Game to get into the spirit of the tournament so have a swing at: http://www.discoverirelandgolfgame.com

And where is the next European Ryder Cup in 2010?  Yes, you guessed it, Wales at the amazing St David’s course near Newport in South Wales.

Report by The Mole at the 19th hole!!