Just over two years ago, when the K Club was formally announced as the venue for the 2005 Ryder Cup, we calculated that, with all the pennies counted, the overall cost would be close on £15 million. It now seems that this will become quite a modest outlay, compared with the bill for 2009.
The news this week that the announcement of the 2009 venue will be made just before the 34th staging of the biennial showpiece at the Belfry next September has quickened pulses north of Hadrian's Wall. An understandably keen sense of anticipation among the Scots, however, is accompanied by growing concern about the strength of the Welsh bid.
Given that the 2009 staging is ostensibly the preserve of the PGA - the European Tour having had their run in 2005 - the Scots appeared to be automatic winners. In the context of the development of the game, their parliament could hardly have done more than to make the firm pledge that every Scots child up to the age of nine (by 2009) will be given the chance to play golf.
Add to that undertaking, the quality of the five challenging venues - St Andrews, Carnoustie, Loch Lomond, Gleneagles and Turnberry - and the Scottish bid, valued, incidentally, at close on £26 million sterling, seems irresistible. Indeed when all the commercial elements are taken into account, including hotel accommodation, Gleneagles would seem to be an ideal front-runner. But it's not quite that simple.
Enter Terry Matthews, rated among the 10 wealthiest men in Britain. As the owner of the 54-hole Celtic Manor development in Wales, five minutes' drive from the Severn Bridge, Matthews has made no secret of his determination to stage the Ryder Cup. And he can count on considerable financial support from the Welsh Assembly, now that they are the recipients of a windfall payout in EU structural funding.
Estimates are that a Welsh bid could amount to as much as £44 million. And as an organisation representing club professionals, the PGA might see far better prospects for their members in an expansion of the game in Wales than would ever be likely in Scotland. Indeed the Welsh hold a similar advantage over the lone English bidder, Slaley Hall in Northumberland.
The Ryder Cup committee which voted the event to the K Club, comprised: Neil Coles and Phil Weaver (joint chairmen), David Huish, John O'Leary, Angel Gallardo and Brian Anderson. The only change in the current committee has Jim Christine, a Scot working at an English club, replacing Anderson.
Politically, the Scots seem to be in a particularly powerful position, given that along with Huish and Christine, the chairman of the PGA, Sandy Jones, is one of their own. As is Ken Schofield, executive director of the European Tour. But this carries the implicit danger of being labelled either partisans or traitors.
Meanwhile, as Mark Mortell, the then chairman of Bord Failte, said of his talks with Schofield prior to the successful Irish bid: "He told me that his responsibility was to get as much money as possible out of the Ryder Cup for the benefit of his members." If Sandy Jones applies the same criterion, his fellow Scots could be in trouble.
"If you just want to pay $1 million for the front of some guy's hat and think that works for your brand, the agents out there will love you. But you're kidding yourself." Bob Wood, president of Nike Golf, on spending endorsement money wisely.
