{"id":369,"date":"2010-09-16T08:48:35","date_gmt":"2010-09-16T15:48:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tgpnolan.com\/?p=369"},"modified":"2011-05-01T14:15:44","modified_gmt":"2011-05-01T21:15:44","slug":"wales-is-a-ryder-cup-lock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tgpnolan\/partner\/kalos\/369\/wales-is-a-ryder-cup-lock","title":{"rendered":"Wales Is a Ryder Cup Lock"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>What we\u2019re going to see come October 1 is a golf-rich country hosting a riveting championship on a generally lousy golf course redeemed by a most clever finish.<\/p>\n

There is nothing of Welsh-flavored golf at The 2010 Course, a glorified patch job engineered for the Ryder Cup. \u00a0Fourteen holes of dead-flat slogging through the rather aptly named Valley of Usk lead to some thumping good stuff: a four-hole finish that includes a drivable par-4 and concludes with a par-5 that can be reached, though not readily, in two shots, the second of which must fly a greenside pond.\u00a0 There will be moments when decisions and execution down that stretch will mean much.\u00a0 Risk\/reward, hero\/goat, defining swings.\u00a0 It will be fun to see, especially for the loads of fans who will watch it all from the best seat in the house:\u00a0the stadium-like rise that forms one side of the Valley.<\/p>\n

It is a course that will never make anyone\u2019s best-of list, and if it goes onto the must-play list of some golfers, it will not be because it epitomizes Welsh golf, but because it had a moment’s flare in the spotlight. \u00a0Upcoming U.S. hosts Medinah (2012) and Hazeltine (2014), along with past venues like Valhalla, The Country Club and The Ocean Course at Kiawah, have hosted plenty of U.S. Opens and PGA Championships.\u00a0 For painfully obvious reasons, The Belfrys, K Clubs and 2010’s of this world will never host the Open Championship.<\/p>\n

There is nothing flavoring of Wales about the competition\u2019s host, the Celtic Manor Resort, either.\u00a0 The very best that can be said of the resort\u2019s flagship hotel, a 350-room brute bristling with cherry-red faux<\/em> awnings above each window, is that it\u2019s a fine chunk of infrastructure for a world-class pageant.<\/p>\n

For Wales, though, it\u2019s all about the spotlight.\u00a0 The Ryder Cup is An Event, and what it will do this time around is showcase Wales and its golf.<\/p>\n

The countryside is beautiful, the people warm, and first-rate links golf is strewn liberally along its shores.\u00a0 Aberdovey, Royal St. David\u2019s, Pyle and Kenfig, Pennard, Southerndown, and the jewel that is Royal Porthcawl will gain more notice over three days than they have in the 100 or so years they\u2019ve been in existence.<\/p>\n

The world is not getting a first-class golf course out of this contraption of a venue. \u00a0But Wales, its people, and its marvelous golf are all making their debut on a worldwide stage, and they will more than stand the scrutiny.<\/p>\n

TheAPosition is a big fan of the Champions Tour<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What we\u2019re going to see come October 1 is a golf-rich country hosting a riveting championship on a generally lousy… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":384,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2226,3380,1483],"tags":[3381,1259,268,1260,677],"class_list":["post-369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-perrygolf","category-a-la-carte","category-kalos","tag-2010-course","tag-aberdovey","tag-wales","tag-royal-porthcawl","tag-ryder-cup"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tgpnolan\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/22\/2010\/09\/celtic.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tgpnolan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tgpnolan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tgpnolan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tgpnolan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tgpnolan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tgpnolan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":379,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tgpnolan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369\/revisions\/379"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tgpnolan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tgpnolan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tgpnolan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tgpnolan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}