Wow! Thanks to my good friends at Epicor I had the chance to go to a couple of days at this year's Ryder Cup at The Celtic Manor Resort in Newport, Wales. On the Wednesday evening we went to a gala dinner at the Milennium Stadium Cardiff with a star studded cast. Here are a few photos (if you click on them an enlarged view should open).
The Thursday was practice for both teams in the morning and the opening ceremony in the afternoon. Here are a few photos (if you click on them an enlarged view should open).
We also went to the first day of competition proper on the Friday, but there were two problems. One was that cameras and phones were not allowed, so I don't have any pictures to post here. The other issue, as some of you who followed the Cup on television may remember is that the heavens absolutely opened. We saw about half a dozen shots at the start of the day, then endured a break of over 7 hours until the course became playable again for the last hour of the day. As you can imagine we were soaked, but it wasn't that bad, we saw most of the world's top players, albeit briefly and the crowds were in good spirits after 7 hours in the beer tent!
Anyway, three days later, on the Monday, Graham McDowell secured a famous victory over Hunter Mahan on the 17th green to bring a hard fought contest to a conclusion with a European win.