A week before Christmas, a piece of ambush marketing from Ryder Cup Europe landed in my inbox. “Give Golf’s Ultimate Gift” was the seductive tag line. The high percentage premise of their pitch was that with seven days to go, people like me were desperate for wow-factor present solutions. Or any solutions. The algorithm they employed to reach this conclusion didn’t break a sweat.
In the email were three bespoke ticket offers for the 2027 Ryder Cup at Adare Manor. Tickets for the Ryder Cup Club – with “informal catering options” and a “complimentary bar” – started at €534.63, including VAT. This was entry-level schmoozing.
But when you clicked on the link to buy, this was a practice day ticket. For Thursday – still not a competition day – the price jumped to €929.20 and for Friday it was double that amount: €1,835.80.
The Captain’s Club was mezzanine-level fleecing. It offered “an upbeat social space, serving local cuisine, drinks, live entertainment and access to exclusive areas and exclusive on-course viewing”. Naturally, the pricing structure was on the same steepling scale: €771.71 on Wednesday, €1,089.39 on Thursday, €2,624.63 on Friday.
If you were wondering about the level of demand at those prices, Saturday and Sunday are “unavailable” according to the link on the website. Sold out, presumably.
And if neither of these satisfied your desire for indoor pampering at a stubbornly outdoor event, the Trophy Suite is the Ritz of marquee entertainment. A Thursday to Sunday ticket comes in at €13,549.47 a head. For what exactly?
“A vibrant all-day menu worthy of one of sport’s greatest events, inspired by global flavours and created from the finest Irish ingredients. Live cooking stations, tasting experiences, and a private bar that serves everything from welcome drinks to cocktails and barista-made coffees complete your experience.”
There is a price to pay for so many marketing buzzwords in one sales pitch.
Spectators at Bethpage for the 2025 Ryder Cup. Photograph: Kate McShane/Getty
Prices for vanilla flavoured day-passes have not been announced yet. For the last Ryder Cup in Bethpage, it was $750 a day, and when the initial outrage subsided, all the tickets were sold.
Just like for all major sports or entertainment events, they set the prices, but we make the market. Projections on demand and pricing are framed by our behaviour. The Ryder Cup in Adare will be full to capacity. In the build-up, tickets will change hands at wild prices. The burning issue will be availability, not cost.
Many golf fanatics, and habitual weekend players, will hold their noses and pay the prices on the grounds that the Ryder Cup will not come this way again for another 20 or 30 years, or maybe even longer.
But for all the fanfare and fever that the event is bound to generate, the Ryder Cup is not for everyone: it is unashamedly elitist. Everybody who pays extortionate amounts for a ticket will be scalped for food and drink and merchandise on-site. For Ryder Cup Europe – an arm of the DP World Tour – the profits from a home Ryder Cup are critical to the business of what used to be the European Tour for the following four years. In that business model, the cash cow must be milked until its teats are raw.
Tickets to an event such as the Open Championship are not cheap either; day passes for Portrush earlier this year cost about €150. On Thursday and Friday, though, there was golf from sun-up to sundown if you wanted to spend 14 hours at the course. All the best players in the world passed before your eyes and nobody was abused from outside the ropes by dribbling drunks. At those prices, it is the best ticket in golf.
Will the Ryder Cup in Adare be much different from The K Club in 2006? Remember what that was like? In tone and texture, it was a creature of the Celtic Tiger years. Incoming helicopters stalked the course like an episode of M.A.S.H. Every inch of the hospitality units was grazed by the corporate herds.
The Ryder Cup at The K Club was the ultimate trophy-ticket for the event crowd, and the event crowd was another evolutionary outcome of the Celtic Tigers years. That week, it was the place to be, and the place to be seen.
Spectators watch the 18th green at The K Club during the 2006 Ryder Cup. Photograph: Alan Betson
Vivid in my mind’s eye still is the sight of a celebrity economist walking down the first hole on Friday morning, inside the ropes, tip-tapping on his Blackberry, paying no attention to Tiger Woods and the others in the opening match. On radio, years later, he declared that he had no interest in golf. This class of people will be crawling all over Adare Manor too.
Nearly two years out, the scramble for the accommodation buck has already started. On the Ryder Cup’s official travel website, you can book a three-star hotel in Killarney, including four days access to the golf and daily transfers to the course, for €6,741 per person for five nights. Or a three-star hotel in Galway city for €5,910 per person. In peacetime traffic, both locations are about 90 minutes from the course.
If your preference is to stay in a house, you can splash out to your heart’s content. According to a report in the Irish Examiner, owners of an “exceptional” four-bedroom property within walking distance of the course have been advised by Ryder Cup Travel Services that they can charge €6,400 per bedroom for Ryder Cup week.
“Homeowners with a four-bedroom property deemed “good” (three stars) could earn up to €15,400 a week if they are close to Adare Manor. And if they are a 60-minute drive away, they could still earn €7,800 a week,” the report continued.
As many as 60,000 overseas visitors are expected for the Ryder Cup, a significant portion of which will be American. The American golf tourists to these shores already know the score and they have a long history of paying over the odds. Golf courses copped on long ago that if they pitch their green fees too low, the American golf tourist will assume that their course is not worth playing. They set the market against themselves.
It is the same dynamic in the Ryder Cup. Bethpage selling out at $750 a pop for a basic ticket was another scalping milestone for the event.
With open-eyed madness, we make the market.