10 Interesting Facts about Ryder Cup

The Ryder Cup 2014 is round the corner and everything seems to be settling down once both the captains put forward their choice of players. This age old golf tournament is always evenly fought, well, most of the time. You will be surprised to know some of the interesting facts about Ryder Cup right here.

Interesting Facts about Ryder Cup

1. Samuel Ryder, who was an avid golfer and also a successful business donated a trophy in the year 1926 to be served as a prize for a competition between the British professional golfers and the American golfers. The purpose to start such a tournament is to spread goodwill between these two countries.
2. The first public appearance of the Ryder Cup was in 1927 when it traveled with the British Ryder Cup team sailing from Southampton in England towards Worcester in Massachusetts in USA for the first ever Ryder Cup game.
3. The Ryder Cup trophy is 17 inches high and nine inches in width (handle to handle) and it is Four pounds in weight.
4. On the top of the trophy there is a figure of a golfer who is a British professional golfer Abe Mitchell, who happened to be the friend and golf instructor of Samuel Ryder. Mitchell himself played in 3 Ryder Cup competitions.
5. Between the years 1935 and 1985, a gap of 50 years Europe emerged as a winner only once and that was in the year 1957. Although out of these 50 years, there was no Ryder Cup tournament for 10 years because of the two World Wars.
6. Only in the year 1979 when players from the rest of Europe were allowed to participate in the competition, till then only British players were allowed as mentioned above.
7. Europe has produced 3 sets of brothers playing in the same Ryder Cup tournaments. They are Charles, Ernest and Reg Whitcombein 1935, Bernard and Geoffrey Hunt in 1963 and Edoardo and Francesco Molinari in 2010.
8. In case of an injury to a player on the either sides, a Captain of each team has put one of his team member’s name in the sealed cover who will withdraw from the other side and each team will then be awarded half a point.
9. Approximately 20, 000 pieces of fish and chips, 15, 000 quarter-pounder burgers, 7000 organic pies and 132, 000 cans of beer were consumed during the 2010 Ryder Cup tournament played at Celtic Manor.
10. The ‘Captains Pick’ system was introduced in 1979 and since then US picks have won 46% and European picks have won 52% of their matches.