Is the Ryder Cup Over-Hyped?

Henry Ford III · 29-09-2014 08:41AM

Di looks good though. Still not sure about Sarah.

FixdePitchmark · 29-09-2014 08:41AM

It is overhyped - Sky is a nightmare - But as lads who love golf , we loved some of the insights that we got - as they had to fill space. Inside the team rooms etc. It was great to get an insight into the effort McGinely had gone to.

A big mistake is smaller sports going onto Sky - nobody gets to see them. Football is impenetrable to damage - people or enough people will watch it anyway.

The Ryder cup - maybe the Masters, seem to transcend the golf viewing public. There was a great opportunity that the Ryder cup could get the general sport fan watching golf. But with it on Sky - friends of mine into sport , but not golf , wouldn't even bother.

Feck this - watching another re-run, going out to play this incredible game - a load of millionaires playing each other.

FixdePitchmark · 29-09-2014 08:51AM

Henry Ford III wrote: »

Di looks good though. Still not sure about Sarah.

Very mechanical.

Nick was in studio then - they must know somebody - Nick pontificating about the lads - sure has he a tour card ?

newport2 · 29-09-2014 09:02AM

bilston wrote: »

How big of a deal is it in the rest of Europe? It's a big deal in Ireland and Britain but is it a big deal anywhere else. I can imagine there being a bit of interest in Spain, Germany and Scandinavia if not to the same extent as here, but I just can't imagine it being that huge a deal outside of these islands.

Or am I wrong?

I was in France for a previous Ryder Cup. Couldn't find anywhere showing it. Several golf clubs looked at me confused when I asked were they showing it. One of about four of the clubs knew what it was.

newport2 · 29-09-2014 09:10AM

Dirty Dingus McGee wrote: »

I prefer watching stroke play (on TV) because it is almost un-interrupted watching of shots being taken.

There was far too much watching fellas looking at the ball over the last 3 days (nothing the TV companies can really do about it).

I wasn't criticizing it for being a match play event I was just saying that as TV spectacle I enjoy the big stroke play events more.

I find the stroke play events far more interrupted that the Ryder Cup was to be honest. A commercial break every 5 or 6 shots.

That said, I still watch both

newport2 · 29-09-2014 09:13AM

FixdePitchmark wrote: »

It is overhyped - Sky is a nightmare - But as lads who love golf , we loved some of the insights that we got - as they had to fill space. Inside the team rooms etc. It was great to get an insight into the effort McGinely had gone to.

A big mistake is smaller sports going onto Sky - nobody gets to see them. Football is impenetrable to damage - people or enough people will watch it anyway.

The Ryder cup - maybe the Masters, seem to transcend the golf viewing public. There was a great opportunity that the Ryder cup could get the general sport fan watching golf. But with it on Sky - friends of mine into sport , but not golf , wouldn't even bother.

Feck this - watching another re-run, going out to play this incredible game - a load of millionaires playing each other.

+1

I love the Ryder Cup, but like most things, Sky just do it to death.

pnpweirdo · 29-09-2014 09:17AM

Do you hear the sh1te the rte muck savages go on about for the gaa matches. Give me sky sports anyday.

razorblunt · 29-09-2014 10:12AM

The only thing Sky didnt hype this weekend was West Brom vs Burnley (any wonder that was on tv?).
I was on the course on Friday and I felt underwhelmed with the "atmosphere", it was just loud noises after shots, nothing too mad at all. Obviously cheers got louder for big scores on the back 9.

Sky's coverage on Saturday and Sunday was poor though. Darren Clarke is a poor addition, it's clear he'll run for Captain so he won't say anything controversial about the players, it was all a bit bland. I literally can't take any more of Monty either.

rrpc · 29-09-2014 10:40AM

I think there are two aspects getting confused here. Sky over-hyping a sports event they cover is nothing new really, it's all about the money to them and that'll never change.

The importance of the Ryder Cup is a separate matter. Speaking from the standpoint of someone who's seen the USA spank us time after time until eventually the full European Tour got involved and started to make a match of it, I still carry enough emotional baggage to see me through to the day the record is balanced; incidentally something McGinley had highlighted to the players in their team room.

Hype is something you can take or leave, it's incidental to the main event and largely irrelevant. Once the game is under way, it fades away into the background.

pelevin · 29-09-2014 10:51AM

It's a lie to say captains have any influence whatsoever? I thought the captain picked wildcards. That would seem to definitively be an influence on events. He picks the pairings. So again, it is impossible to argue that he has influenced things.

"No, that's a lie!! He has no influence. Ok, maybe a little influence but none apart from those things."
"But doesn't he very much help set an atmosphere, & since humans aren't robots, then this in has to be an influence on proceedings?"
"That's a goddamn lie. They are professional automatons."

Myksyk · 29-09-2014 10:55AM

thewobbler wrote: »

But golf ? I'm sorry, you're mad if you buy into this nonsense. At Ryder Cup level every one of the 24 players is capable of going on a 6-hole birdie streak and ending the contest there and then. If that happens to you or your opponent, it really doesn't matter one iota what is happening in the other matches. If I'm playing Bubba and standing on the tee on a short par four and news filters through that Garcia has made a 30-footer or made a mess of his match, does that affect my strategy? No it doesn't, Bubba is going for that green either way. If I'm coming up 18 and need a half for the match, am I going to try something extravagant? No event anywhere else on the course is going to change the strategy there either. And so on.

The issue is not whether the events on the field of play affect your strategy, it's about whether they affect you psychologically and therefore impact on your performance ... your ability to implement your strategy effectively.

Golf is a sport where anxiety or stress can have an acute, almost exaggerated impact on motor performance. It relies heavily on fine motor movement ... and 'correctness' or effectiveness' of the swing is measured in millimetres with small deviations resulting in major differences in outcome. All the players playing yesterday are under significant stress. That stress is modulated by any number of factors you might care to mention ... like personality, mindset, previous experience, emotionality, disposition to anxiety, audience, perceived importance of a shot, subjective perception of the importance of the tournament or your own game, home advantage, observations about the overall state of play, worry, my last shot, etc etc etc. It most definitely in my mind is affected by how my fellow players are doing on the course and whether I can see a swing in how one team is playing relative to another. Unless I'm a robot it affects me emotionally and therefore it can have a direct impact on my performance. When a group of players are impacted positively by a shift in one direction, positive or negative, then I think that constitutes change in momentum.

rrpc · 29-09-2014 12:04PM

Just one final point on the hype. Whether it annoys you or you can ignore it, the upshot is that it raises the profile of golf all around the world and that can't be a bad thing really.

pickarooney · 29-09-2014 01:46PM

bilston wrote: »

How big of a deal is it in the rest of Europe? It's a big deal in Ireland and Britain but is it a big deal anywhere else. I can imagine there being a bit of interest in Spain, Germany and Scandinavia if not to the same extent as here, but I just can't imagine it being that huge a deal outside of these islands.

Or am I wrong?

I would be amazed if one person in my office recognised the name Victor Dubuisson.

razorblunt · 29-09-2014 02:33PM

pickarooney wrote: »

I would be amazed if one person in my office recognised the name Victor Dubuisson.

and their lives are all the more empty for this!!

BoardsMember · 29-09-2014 03:34PM

I have to say that being constantly told by the commentators, through all 5 sessions, things like "make no mistake folks, what we are seeing here is truly once in a lifetime golf" or something to that effect...it becomes a little tired after a while. I ended up rooting for USA yesterday, just so it was closer. GMac was being hailed as a hero, when in fact Spieth fell apart. I was so excited on Thursday night, couldn't wait for it, by Sunday I was not that bothered. I suppose the ease of victory has a lot to do with it. Also, I don't think USA care as much as EU team do, there is a bit of the inferiority complex firing the EU team up, whereas the Americans might like to win, but they'll move on pretty quickly.

Bandana boy · 29-09-2014 03:40PM

Re: Momentum
Of course players in a team are effected by how other players in that team are doing .In fact it not only effects them emotionally and changes the amount of pressure/stress they are under but also will change/inform shot selection, strategy.
To not see that you really would have had to have never played a team sport of any description in your life.

Would you accept that the difficulty in putting 1 put to half a hole and 2 puts to win a hole are completely different levels of difficulty on the exact same putt ?.
If so ,How can you not see that pressure on every shot changes when the team is doing well/poor.

rrpc · 29-09-2014 03:49PM

BoardsMember wrote: »

I have to say that being constantly told by the commentators, through all 5 sessions, things like "make no mistake folks, what we are seeing here is truly once in a lifetime golf" or something to that effect...it becomes a little tired after a while. I ended up rooting for USA yesterday, just so it was closer. GMac was being hailed as a hero, when in fact Spieth fell apart. I was so excited on Thursday night, couldn't wait for it, by Sunday I was not that bothered. I suppose the ease of victory has a lot to do with it. Also, I don't think USA care as much as EU team do, there is a bit of the inferiority complex firing the EU team up, whereas the Americans might like to win, but they'll move on pretty quickly.

You might be right in your last sentence, but possibly only where it concerns matches played in Europe. The USA absolutely hate to be beaten on home soil and every one of the players on the losing team in Medinah spoke of the horrible feeling they still had from that defeat.

But, if it meant so little, why was Mickelson so quick to tear into his captain? Wouldn't he have been just as happy to sit there and spout inanities until it was time to hop on his private jet and head back home again?

flugel · 29-09-2014 04:13PM

razorblunt wrote: »

Sky's coverage on Saturday and Sunday was poor though. Darren Clarke is a poor addition, it's clear he'll run for Captain so he won't say anything controversial about the players, it was all a bit bland. I literally can't take any more of Monty either.

Started to record the Golf Channel broadcasts in Setanta in the evenings. It's day old news by time it's aired here, but at least they provide some insight and back up what they say with stats, am sick to death of sky sports basing the whole performance on passion

stylie · 29-09-2014 05:16PM

thewobbler wrote: »

I'll flip your first comment on its head. People always talk about Faldo and Hutton. So in the 20 odd Ryder cups we've had since Europe came on board, only 2 captains are alleged to have made a difference, and both a negative one.

Honestly, take a step back and analyse what you've seen this weekend and tell me how and what happened as a result of McGinley'a guiding hand.

As for momentum. As a player, you're playing a match, not an event. Sergio holing from 30 feet on the next green has no bearing at all whatsoever on how Hunter Mahan plays his game against you. It's that simple. Momentum is imagined in these tournaments. If you were to to go the World match play and handpick half the players to be 'your team', you'd see similar swings in your 'momentum' throughout.

I picked two standout brutal captains to illustrate my point, I could add more but those two should be enough to show that captains influence proceedings. The players have even said what a great captain Paul was(are you saying the players are wrong), look at the effort he made with Victor at the start of the year, getting to know him, finding out what made him tick all in an effort to great a better team. Look at what Phil said last night about Watson and about Azinger.

As for momentum, let me explain. You are playing a US guy, its all square, a US player in a match ahead or behind puts red on the board, your under pressure now to get a point, you make a mistake, red goes on your board. Players around the course see that pressure comes on the Euro players off the US players, thats momentum.

And if you think what happens in each match is in isolation from the matches around you then you simply haven't a clue. You think Hunter duffing the chip 4yrs ago wasnt in response to what was happening in the matches around him? Choking again this year and Speith collapse would have happened anyway if the board was all red ? Seriously they are not machines, they are aware of whats happening in matches around them and if affects them positively and negatively.

BoardsMember · 29-09-2014 05:48PM

rrpc wrote: »

You might be right in your last sentence, but possibly only where it concerns matches played in Europe. The USA absolutely hate to be beaten on home soil and every one of the players on the losing team in Medinah spoke of the horrible feeling they still had from that defeat.

But, if it meant so little, why was Mickelson so quick to tear into his captain? Wouldn't he have been just as happy to sit there and spout inanities until it was time to hop on his private jet and head back home again?

Maybe it varies from player to player a little. Phil might be more invested in it. And you might have a point re when it is played in USA. I think the Ryder Cup needs a USA win at this stage, I'd worry if Europe continued to beat USA in the next 2 or 3, they might just lose interest. I really liked what Phil said afterwards, he was spot on, it does not sound like Tom Watson put a whole heap of effort in. Then again, would anyone have expected Tom Watson to put in as much effort as McGinley?

MisterAnarchy · 29-09-2014 11:21PM

Boskowski wrote: »

I
I thought the same of the opening and closing ceremonies. Maybe not overhyped but overly formal. It was a chore rather than fun.

A bit off topic but what is the point of all these opening and closing ceremonies for sporting events nowadays ?
Olympics,World Cup, etc etc.
They are just tedious drawn out monstrosities .
There is no need for an opening or closing ceremony for the Ryder Cup .

FixdePitchmark · 29-09-2014 11:30PM

MisterAnarchy wrote: »

A bit off topic but what is the point of all these opening and closing ceremonies for sporting events nowadays ?
Olympics,World Cup, etc etc.
They are just tedious drawn out monstrosities .
There is no need for an opening or closing ceremony for the Ryder Cup .

It has to have a start an end ?
But - yes poor Di - a bit too earnest. The scots don't get to hold too many things - so is a show case in a way. In fairness they tried to keep it quick.

But she kept repeating everything that was just done - was very funny.

As for the European national anthem - great tune , but how many know Beethoven's 9th (lol)

The opening ceremony of the London Games were amazing.

But agree - generally somebody in Lycra with a drum.

MisterAnarchy · 29-09-2014 11:37PM

FixdePitchmark wrote: »

It has to have a start an end ?

It starts with the first shot on Friday morning and ends with the last shot Sunday .

FixdePitchmark · 29-09-2014 11:39PM

MisterAnarchy wrote: »

It starts with the first shot on Friday morning and ends with the last shot Sunday .

Yes the other majors are class and don't have any of this crap.

Is a good point - what is it all about.

In saying that - The Masters - is getting a bit of a week long event - but Sky would show anything.

Dolph Starbeam · 30-09-2014 10:20AM

It is over hyped. Sky have been talking and showing adverts for it for about a year now.

It still didn't take anything away from it in my opinion, Sky over hype everything, I just ignore most of it. Personally I prefer when it's hosted in the U.S. because I prefer watching it with a couple bottles of beer for the night, instead of being up at 8am. That's the only thing that took away from it for me.

It's a great competition, the spirit and togetherness of the European team is great to see in such an individual sport.

The opening and closing ceremony can easily be ignored too, I watched a small bit of the closing ceremony just to see them recieve the trophy but then I switched it off. A lot of work goes into these competitions so some people need the be thanked and congratulated for their hard work, nothing wrong with it imp.

First Up · 30-09-2014 10:27AM

The only good thing about Sky is that there is no chance of coverage being interrupted because Armagh are playing Tyrone or some similar event the BBC has to accommodate.
But the hype is dreadful. I turned the telly on about 5 minutes before the first tee-off and had the remote as close as I could manage for the innumerable ad breaks. (If I hear "Let's talk about brave" one more time, it will be a hundred and one times too many.)

stitcheddepin · 30-09-2014 03:53PM

RC is severely over hyped, but it brings a lot of excitement. As a golf fan I fell into it, couldn't wait for it to start, by Spieths meltdown Sunday I had no interest anymore, but maybe that was because it was so one sided.
If they can take away all this b88l**** about the power of the captain and choosing the right toilet paper and blah blah blah it might get a fresh boost. please don't start talking about the nice captain already. that's the beginning of hype

stitcheddepin · 30-09-2014 03:54PM

RC is severely over hyped, but it brings a lot of excitement. As a golf fan I fell into it, couldn't wait for it to start, by Spieths meltdown Sunday I had no interest anymore, but maybe that was because it was so one sided.
If they can take away all this b88l**** about the power of the captain and choosing the right toilet paper and blah blah blah it might get a fresh boost. please don't start talking about the next captain already. that's the beginning of hype

Is the Ryder Cup Over-Hyped?

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