Ryder Cup 2010

This year’s 38th Ryder Cup at Celtic Manor Resort, Wales looks set to be hotly contested between two well matched teams. Europe will be keen to regain the trophy after losing to Paul Azinger’s Team USA at Valhalla last time out. The contest will be played out on a new course at Celtic Manor, dubbed the “Twenty-Ten” course. The team captains are Colin Montgomerie for Europe and Corey Pavin for the USA.

The Ryder Cup is probably the biggest event in the golfing calendar. It attracts golf fans from far and wide and also creates new fans with its exciting matchplay format.

Played over three days, there are three different types of matchplay played. On the first and second day of Ryder Cups there are four foursomes (where there are two teams of two players using one ball each) played in the morning and four fourball (where there are two teams of two players each playing their own ball throughout the round) matches in the afternoon. On the final day of the Ryder Cup there are 12 singles matches.

The modern Ryder Cup has been contested between the USA and Europe since 1979. Europe winning the trophy eight times (including once when they retained the title after a tie in 1989) and the USA winning seven times. Before 1979 the opponents to the USA were players exclusively from Great Britain and Ireland.

The tournament has taken place every two years apart from when the 2001 competition was delayed for a year as a mark of respect to the tragedies which took place in the United States on September 11th, 2001.

Current European captain Colin Montgomerie has the best singles record of all time, winning 7 points from a possible 8 and never losing any of the nine singles matches he played on the final day of the Ryder Cup.

The USA captain Corey Pavin scored a total of 9 points in his three Ryder Cup appearances between 1991 and 1995.

Team Europe are the favourites with the bookmakers with best odds of 17/20, while the USA are priced at 7/5.

Ryder Cup 2010 Betting odds