O’Grady: we’re just unlucky

THE sun may or may not come out to play in the Usk Valley this weekend but European captain Colin Montgomerie was certainly saying hip, hip, hip hooray to the prospect of a vastly rejigged Ryder Cup schedule intended to beat the weather.

Attempting to make up the seven hours and 18 minutes lost yesterday to atrocious weather conditions that waterlogged the TwentyTen course at the Celtic Manor Resort near Newport, tournament organisers the European Tour and PGA of America, in conjunction with both captains, Montgomerie and Corey Pavin, came up with ‘Ryder Cup: Extreme Makeover’, a revised itinerary designed to get the event completed on schedule tomorrow evening. Weather permitting.

With all four fourball matches scheduled to be completed this morning, the second session of matches intended to have been completed by close of play last night will now consist of six foursomes matches instead of the programmed four, while session three, the early Saturday session, will now feature two foursomes matches and four fourballs before concluding as is the norm with the 12 singles matches. Weather permitting.

There is still a day’s play on Monday available to get all 28 scheduled matches completed with any remaining contests unfinished at nightfall that day, at around 6.45pm, being declared halves and the issue being decided then.

Whenever they are played, the makeover means that the captains, once the Friday fourballs are completed, will have to utilise all 12 players in each remaining session. Montgomerie is delighted at the prospect.

“I think it works very well,” Montgomerie said. “It gives opportunity for everybody to play golf, especially me in my position where it was very difficult to get my team right down to 12, let alone down to eight, and now I don’t have to. I can leave it at 12. Everybody plays. We have 28 matches.”

The concept of no hiding place appealed to Monty, whose team resume this morning’s fourballs up in one, all square in another and down in two.

“This is a brilliant option that we have available to us and let’s take it as that,” he added. “The foursomes, alternate-shot, I’m very happy with my team of 12. I have more, to be honest with you, of a foursomes team than a fourball team, and I am very confident and remain so.”

Maintaining the total number of points available at the intended 28 was of paramount importance said George O’Grady, chief executive of the European Tour, who also spoke on behalf of PGA of America chief Joe Steranka, seated alongside him.

“We felt we must do everything we can to finish the Ryder Cup on Sunday while maintaining the integrity of the match,” O’Grady said.

“This all depends on the sky and whether the rain comes back again. We don’t have a good forecast for Sunday, but they are not always accurate, and if that happens, we will roll into Monday, keeping the singles sacrosanct, whatever happens.”

Despite having lost more than seven hours of play, O’Grady said he was confident the new plan would claw back five hours but he added it was unfortunate that Friday ticket holders, the fans directly affected by the loss of play, would not experience the benefits, and Sunday ticket holders would be allowed re-admission should the event spill over into Monday.

US captain Pavin also endorsed the idea, crediting “some very smart people” for coming up with the plan, and although he said he was confident his players could play in a lot of different combinations he admitted it made life more comfortable for him.

“I feel like this makes it a lot easier. Sitting four guys out is very brutal to do as a captain,” Pavin said.

“It’s going to be tremendous for the fans. They are going to have six matches to watch as opposed to four.”

Earlier, O’Grady also defended the decision to award the Ryder Cup to Celtic Manor when the only available slot in the schedule was October 1-3.

“We all know the weather can change all the time,” he said. “We do look at it. The last time we played at The Belfry, the weather was perfect for all four days, hardly a cloud in the sky.

“We are becoming unlucky; we went to Spain (Valderrama, 1997) and we were told it never rains in Spain in September. And I think we lost the first morning it was played there virtually and it kept on raining the rest of the week.

“Golf tournaments have lost days of rain before. We play The Wales Open here, and we have lost a day’s play, as well, which is just unlucky. It’s happened before.”

Most notably Bethpage Black at the 2009 US Open when the skies opened over New York’s Long Island and forced play into a Monday finish. That was in June.