Why we’d choose the Walker Cup over the Ryder Cup

While the Ryder Cup is pricing out regular people, the Walker Cup is increasingly the move for golf sickos.

Grandstands at the 2023 Ryder Cup

The golf world—at least the portion of it who spends several hours of screen time per day on Twitter—was outraged at the recent news that day tickets for the 2025 Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black will cost $750 USD.

There is another entire essay to be written about the slow asphyxiation of the golden goose of live fan interest in professional sports…but I’ll stay on topic and focus on how the cost of these tickets (up roughly 3x from last year in Rome) represents atrocious value and how your scarce dollars should be spent elsewhere.

Our 2023 experience

Haley and I were fortunate to attend the 2023 Ryder Cup at Marco Simone in Rome, Italy. We entered the ballot nearly a year in advance and found out we had been selected in November 2022—successfully getting tickets to the Wednesday practice rounds and the Saturday matches. It cost us about $1,200 USD to commit to four tickets to both days—we knew we could either convince friends to join us or sell our tickets online.

It was an awesome experience, but it wasn’t our favourite golf spectating experience of the year.

We went for about three hours on the practice day, walked the course, saw the players up close, had a beer or two, scoped out the merch tent in extreme detail, and called it a day. On the Saturday, we woke up at 3:40am, caught the first train to the course, lined up in the dark for the first tee to open, and watched all the first tee shots while cheering for Europe, singing along to the songs that we could figure out, and being led in the Scandinavian thunder clap by Nic Coelsaerts. After all the first tee shots were done, we went to the 12th green expecting it to be a good spot to see those matches come around while still being able to see the 15th green, the big screen beside it, and some of the 16th hole.

A crowd of thousands waits to gain access to the Ryder Cup grounds at 5am.

The first tee grand stands as the sun comes up

That plan fell through when Vik and Ludvig beat Koepka and Scheffler’s wheels off (9&7). That match didn’t make it to the 12th green, so we just ended up chilling by the 15th green all day, enjoying some rare shade, watching matches come through 15, drinking a few 11 euro Peronis, and learning the european fan songs.

A Peroni tent next to a grandstand

Our reviews on Rome

Our Saturday at the 2023 Ryder Cup was a great day, but it required the right attitude. The dirty secret about watching team golf in person? When it comes to actually watching golf, it is the worst. 

There are 8 groups on the entire golf course for the first two days, then 12 singles matches. Comparatively, there were 271,000 fans at the Ryder Cup in total, and about 60–80k fans onsite for each competitive round. With so many people and so little golf, it’s essentially impossible to see much at all.

Haley records action from the 12th green to watch on her phone later since she can’t see over the crowds

For us, it was a bucket list item: see a Ryder Cup contested in person, preferably in Europe. Add in that last summer we were only a ~2 hour flight away? Totally worth it.

But next year the equation would look a whole lot different. At $750 per person for competitive rounds and $250–450 per practice round, it would cost us about $4,400 USD (compared to $1,200) to buy the exact same tickets for Bethpage Black. In our opinion, the math gets worse when you’re surrounded by “USA!” chants on repeat, and miss out on all the creative football chants the Euros have devised over the years. 

Contrasting the Walker Cup

Three weeks before flying to Italy, we walked up to 18th green of the Old Course in St Andrews and purchased tickets at the gate for the Walker Cup. The US vs. Great Britain & Ireland amateur match play event actually predates the Ryder Cup and takes place exclusively at the coolest golf courses in the world (LACC, Hoylake, Seminole, the Old Course, Cypress Point, Lahinch, Bandon Dunes, to name a few). 

Our tickets—still available on the spot—were 25 GBP, or about 33 USD, per day.

The USGA and the R&A take this event very seriously, but it was not expensive to attend. And we quickly learned that the significantly decreased cost wasn’t the only thing we preferred.

For one, in many places the R&A essentially did not have ropes—or they had temporary ropes monitored by volunteers. We were almost exclusively able to walk where we liked and often followed groups up holes as they played. 

Grant Sargent, of team USA, tees off on the Old Course.

Spectators walk the 18th fairway at the Old Course

By nature, attending a less high profile golf event, also brings out a more golf-focused audience. While there were only a few thousand people following along, every single one of them was a golf geek. Nobody was there for an infamous rowdy party zone, or to be seen at a PGA-sanctioned popularity contest.

Standing on the fringe of the 18th green at St Andrews, watching a deciding putt from 80 feet away, with a 6 GBP pint in hand and a 25 GBP ticket in my pocket was an experience that stands out by a mile against other sports spectating opportunities that are increasingly expensive and diluted.

Competitors putt out on 18 green while spectators surround the green complex

I’d take our day at the Walker Cup in Scotland 10 times out of 10 vs. a $$$$$ weekend at the Ryder Cup in New York.

We’re so bullish on the Walker Cup that we’re taking a group of 24 to the 2026 Walker Cup in Lahinch, Ireland.

Learn more about our trip (and hold your spot!) here.