The announcement yesterday that Italy – rather than favourites Germany, or indeed Spain or Austria – had been awarded the Ryder Cup for 2022 was, to say the least, a surprise.
Yet, the importance of the biennial team event to the European Tour’s coffers, and its use as a bargaining tool, was underscored with new information from the tour that the winning bid had guaranteed a prize fund of €7 million for the Italian Open for 11 years, starting in 2017, which proved critical in usurping the other candidates.
As it stands, the Italian Open has a purse of €1.5 million, set to double to €3 million next year, before the huge increase to €7 million annually which will bring it on a par financially with those tournaments involved in the “Final Series”.
Reconstruct course
On top of that financial commitment to the Italian Open, the Italian bid also included a promise to completely reconstruct the
Marco Simone
golf resort, situated 17km from the centre of Rome.
"We have exciting plans for the development of the European Tour and our international schedule for the benefit of all our players, and Italy shares this ambition. Their commitment to the Italian Open will provide an inspiring benchmark," saidd European Tour chief executive Keith Pelley in a statement confirming Italy's successful bid.
It’s the third continental European venue – following Valderrama in 1997 and Paris National in 2022 – to play host to the Ryder Cup.
German disappointment
Italy’s victory in the bidding war came as a surprise, with
Marco Kaussler
, head of the German Ryder Cup bid, in a statement, confirming their disappointment: “We are obviously disappointed. We felt that the whole package was very strong and competitive.”
While Spain, who had sought to stage the match at the Denis O’Brien-owned PGA Catalunya resort outside Barcelona, shared that disappointment.
"We remain very proud of the strong and innovative bid we submitted to Ryder Cup Europe, and will continue with our ambitions to grow the game of golf at all levels across Spain," said Gonzaga Escauriaza, President of the Royal Spanish Golf Federation (RFEG).
A five-man bid evaluation committee – which included Pelley, Ryder Cup directors Richard Hills and Edward Kitson, European Tour director David MacLaren and European Tour CFO Jonathan Orr – examined all four candidates and judged them on five specific criteria, which included "demonstrable" government support, infrastructure, development of a "world class golf facility" and legacy aspects to the sport.
“The Italian bid was consistently strong and impressive across the board in terms of infrastructure, commercial structure and government support.
“It was a worthy gold medalist in this particular contest, although there were three impressive silver medalists too in Austria, Germany and Spain, who conducted themselves in a professional manner throughout the process,” said Hills.
Given that all four candidates delivered on quality of the course and government support, the deciding factor would appear to have been financial with the commitment to a significant increase in prizemoney for the Italian Open.
Money factor
The money factor has developed into a strong trend for prospective stagers of the match, going back to the awarding of the 1997 Ryder Cup to Valderrama (host venue for the traditional season ending Volvo Masters). That continued with the 2006 match to the K Club (when the European Open was staged there for 13 years from 1995 to 2007) and the 2010 match to
Celtic
Manor (which hosted the Wales Open).
Similarly the 2014 match at Gleneagles and the awarding of the 2018 match to Paris National (which has staged the French Open since 1991).
