Every two years comes the sporting highlight of the last two years.
Quite wonderfully, it’s a game of golf and it arouses passions like almost no other event.
It’s great and what makes it even better is that Nigel Farage must absolutely hate it: The Ryder Cup, Europe v the USA.
Statistically, golf is a game in decline. Less people in Britain are playing the game and the ones who are playing the game are not getting any younger. (I certainly noticed this morning when I was forced to abandoned yet another round, my fourth in a week, because of absurdly slow play by large groups of senior citizens. I was the youngest person on the course by miles and I am not exactly in the first flush of youth.)
Most golf is now on Sky TV so only a small minority see it, except the Open Championship and the odd days of some other tournaments.
The Open remains a ‘listed event’ which means it must be on terrestrial TV but the Ryder Cup isn’t, so the vast majority of the populace is reduced to waiting for late night highlights or listening to BBC Radio Five Live’s magnificent coverage. I think that’s a real shame because the Ryder Cup arouses emotions like few other sporting events. I find myself in a shocking state of stress and anxiety watching a Frenchman and a German playing a golf match, desperate for them to win. In what other sport would I find myself doing that?
I am European through my bloodline and European by nature so it’s easy for me to get swept away with it, but there are many others with more nationalist points of view, as well as those who loathe the EU, who suddenly find themselves supporting Europe.
Maybe it’s because of who ‘we’ are playing, that it’s the presence of the Americans who really drive the passion in a schadenfreude-ish kind of way, but that would suggest all we want to happen is for the Yanks to miss putts and for me it isn’t. I will be roaring when Kaymer sinks a putt, not concerning myself with my usual anti all things German that normally overtakes me in sporting events (well, football).
What Nigel Farage makes of it is anyone’s business. Here’s a man whose life’s work is predicated upon xenophobia, europhobia and extreme nationalism, a man from the very heart of the establishment he pretends to be fighting. I am guessing that he will be praying for an American win for fear of what another European victory might bring. Doubtless, we’ll all be eating Bratwurst, wearing stripy shirts and rings of onions round our necks and drinking Carlsberg as we hold rallies supporting the institutions of Brussels.
Or perhaps it’s a glorious sporting occasion where we cast aside our prejudices and for a few days become Europeans.
I’m not sure if a European team would be possible or even desirable in other sports but it’s great fun in golf! Even for you, Farage. Even for you.
