WINTER | ME, MYSELF & I
Edward
Kitson
The Ryder Cup’s match director
talks preparation and delivery on a
major scale
The real detail of the planning
started properly after the 2014
Ryder Cup in Scotland, and the
primary focus was on getting
the core set up. We did quite
a lot of changes to the golf
course and built a number of
roads and pathways around the
course, improving the viewing
opportunities throughout the
course. Transport is key to the
whole event.
One of the things that came out
of the planning and research
process was that we needed to
make the most of the two train
stations, and also four different park and rides, which were East and
West of the site with two spectator villages there with large screens.
When the event was finally set up you could then get straight into
the action without having to travel across the whole site.
We built the biggest ever grandstand we’ve had at the Ryder Cup.
The overall capacity however, is really decided on by what we feel
the site can manage as far as spectator flow, but also on the transfer
plan. We felt comfortable after all the planning that we could
accommodate 55,000 spectators a day on site.
The Ryder Cup is a very special sporting event. It’s really the
intensity of whole experience. The three-day event’s atmosphere is
54
totally unique. The players are
playing as a team against other
individuals. There’s much more
cheering and intensity. It’s an
atmosphere on a different scale.
We see ourselves as trying
to create the ampitheatre to
encourage the memorable
atmosphere of a truly great
major sporting event, complete
with the grandstands and the
big screens.
It was in 2011 that the Ryder
Cup announced it was going to
France, so that was seven years
ago. Meanwhile, in 2016 it was it was announced that it was going to
go to Italy. We’re working on the process now of looking at venues for
2026.
Because of the scale and the size of the infrastructure project that
we’ve got, we must hire an excellent team to get the venues and all
the operational elements organised in advance. The complexity
of the transport plan is so much more involved than other golfing
events.
By 8 o’clock in the morning on the first day, we had over 30,000
people on site. I don’t think there’s many other sporting events where
you’d have that number of people engaged at that time.