Ryder Cup

Sitting in Star Spreads HQ in Dublin watching the end of The Barclays tournament and seeing endless Ryder Cup previews has caused me to start burning the “early evening oil” in study for what is without question my favourite sporting event of the year.

In days gone by those bookie chaps used to price the event up on the ability and recent records of the players in stroke play events. This caused team USA to be a very short price and the Europeans to regularly be value. Anyone with a passing knowledge of the Ryder Cup knows that Europe have being doing rather well recently and profits have mounted up accordingly.

Recently, however, it is Europe that are basically the better team and home advantage tipping the scales as to whom is favourite. At Celtic Manor, when the last event was played in Europe, a strong Europe side prevailed 14.5 to 13.5 in an absolute thriller. Much of the credit for this narrowest of victories went to the increasingly annoying (is that possible?) Colin Montgomerie but for me that team may have slightly underperformed. They were expected to win and in my opinion should have won a shade cosier.

Now the event is back to American soil and will be played at the Medinah Country club in Illinois. With a heavily partisan crowd behind the home team I fully expect the home team to come out on top again.

In the most simple of terms the American team are better. I try not to put too much stock in “he is a great team player”, “plays better in Ryder Cup” etc and although Europe have some potential great Ryder Cuppers in their ranks (especially Ian Poulter, a resurgent Sergio Garcia and the great fully untapped potential of Rory McIlroy), the Americans simply ‘bat much deeper’ in their 12 man line up.

I feel that home advantage is possibly under played in this now colossal event and finding the Americans at 5-6 to me is great value. This implies they would be underdogs on (theoretical) neutral territory which I cannot have on my mind.

The only real problem left is for years lumping on Europe and then cheering them on like a wagon is now replaced by backing “the enemy” and cheering on the Yanks versus “our boys”. Oh well, money makes the world go round…

Sumdger’s Big Bet

USA to win the Ryder Cup 2pts win at 5-6