Next week something like a billion people will watch The Ryder Cup being played between USA & Europe at Celtic Manor near Newport in South Wales.

As well as coverage of the event on TV acres of newsprint will be generated on what takes place on and off the course with journalists looking for some angle to dangle at what is described as the third biggest corporate sporting event in the world.

My own particular angle is I was Sales & Marketing Director at Celtic Manor during the time when countries were bidding to host The Ryder Cup and if you’re interested in what it took to bring the event to Wales for the first time then read on as I take you back to the year 2000.

The first thing you may have picked up on was that it was down to the country to bid for the event, there were various reasons for this not least the need to have the clout to create an infrastructure around the venue itself to support the influx of spectators requiring accommodation, transportation, parking etc.

It was also acknowledgement of the value of hosting the event as those at the top of the game of golf had come to realise that as the game developed across Europe then it was only fair that the event should be taken to the countries where the European team members originated.

Now to clarify who those at the top were as many people assume that it’s the St Andrews based Royal & Ancient (R&A) who are responsible for administering the rules of golf and who organise The Open Championship every July. It’s not.

One of our initial challenges was ascertaining just who the decision makers were, we knew that it was split jointly between firstly the Wentworth base Europeantour who organise tournaments across Europe ( and increasingly beyond ) for their members who are basically the top European pro golfers who make their living from playing in tournament golf.

The other half of the decision makers were the Belfry based Professional Golfers Association (PGA) who represents all pro golfers probably including the ones you may know at your local club.

At the early stages of the bid we were advised that the decision would be made by a committee of 6 made up of 3 from The Europeantour and 3 from The PGA. In the event of a split decision then the casting vote would be made by the head of The PGA.

This initially led us to think that The PGA carried the clout but we later learnt that the casting vote, if used, was rotated between the 2 organisations for each bi-annual decision.

Part 2 tomorrow....