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Golf Ryder Cup

The Ryder Cup is a men's golf competition between teams from Europe and the United States, played every two years. The venue alternates between courses in the USA and Europe. The Ryder Cup is organized and administered by the Professional Golfers’ Association of America and Ryder Cup Europe.



The inaugural event took place in Worcester Country Club, Massachusetts, United States in 1927. After the Second World War, the tournament restarted and continued, and so as the American dominating the tournament. That led to their verdict to expand the representation of Great Britain and Ireland to include continental Europe from 1979.

In 1973, the British Team changed their title to “Great Britain and Ireland” to state that golfers from Ireland have been playing for the Great Britain Ryder Cup since 1953, while the Northern Irish players have been competing since 1947.

Since 1979, Europe have won over ten times outright and retained the Cup once in a tied match with seven American wins over the period.

These European team included players from countries like Belgium, France, Spain, Sweden, Germany and Italy.

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The counterpart of the Ryder Cup is the Presidents Cup. Both remained exceptions within the world of professional sports because players don’t receive money prizes despite the contests being high-profile events that bring in large amounts of money in television and sponsorship revenue.

The format of the Cup has changed over the years. From the first even until 1959, it had a 2-day competition with 36-hole matches. Later it was changed to 18-hole and matches doubled in 1961. 2 years later, the event was expanded to three days instead of two, with four-ball matches being played for the first time. This format remained until 1977, later reduced to 20 matches in 1979; the first continental European players participated. The format was changed to 28-match version used until today, with 8 foursomes or four-ball matches on the first 2 days and 12 singles matches on the last day.

In the 2014 Ryder Cup, Team Europe completed a hat-trick of successive wins in the greatest tournament in match play golf. In 2016, the US won their first Ryder Cup title in eight years with a 17-11 victory over Europe.

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