Ryder Washout…

I have to apologize ahead of time, this blog entry is as much therapy as it is a chronicle of events. I hope you have time to get through it, it took over my writing soul. I did my best to let you enjoy my misery more than I did. It will be quickly followed by a much more pleasant day.

When we saw the “Heavy Rain” forecast early in the week, it didn’t seem like that big of a deal. This is the UK, after all, heavy rain is just part of the deal. Surely the folks at the Ryder Cup would have thought of the possibility and be ready to ‘play through,’ as it were.

We bussed back over to the rail hub at Crewe and took the direct train south through Shrewsbury (pronounced Shrews-bree rather than what you just said as you read it, you dumb AmericanJ), and then through western England and across into northeastern Wales. If you don’t know, Wales was its own separate land that matured independently of their neighbors to the east, and they also developed their own independent language – and, boy, is it independent. It is the craziest language you’ve ever seen that still uses the same letters we do (I can’t go into the history of it without the internet, and as I mentioned, we don’t get much internet time), but I’d be willing to bet that did not use the same letters when they first started writing it down. Anyhoo, we rolled through the lush, green countryside full of sheep and hedgerows, and through quaint towns with cathedrals and tightly-packed dwellings, and then right on through Newport, site of the Ryder Cup itself, and out to Swansea, where we had booked our accommodations at a cottage on an ancient working farm. We walked Swansea a bit, checking out the remains of the castle that still, well, remains, downtown...

and then we cabbed it in a drizzle up the mountain to our farm. Our cottage had been converted from an old farm building and had beautiful stone walls, but was otherwise pretty modern, you can see the beautiful glassed in living room with the view of Swansea Bay. It was altogether spectacular. It continued raining through the night, but again, what would you expect?

Sawyer and I got up at 5:35 to get a cab back to the train station. It was raining and windy and dark, but we had our raincoats, rainpants and Georgia hats, so we felt prepared. The first tee-offs were set for 7:45, and Bubba Watson wasn’t starting until 8:30. We made the 6:30 express train, and were in Newport by 7:40. This was the last good thing that happened to us all day…

We had packed a backpack with some dry clothes, and we took the camera. We didn’t have a cell phone because the website made it clear we couldn’t bring it in. I had slept poorly the night before trying to decide whether cameras were okay, and decided that the cellphone ban was because of potential rings, but that I always heard cameras at golf tournaments, and I didn’t want to miss a chance to get a picture of us with Bubba. We’ll call this mistake number one, just to be generous.

So, back at the station in Newport (or Casnewydd for those of you following in Welsh), there was a free shuttle to and from the VIP dropoff by the eighteenth green. If you already had your tickets in hand. Our tickets were at the East Car Parking outpost 15 miles away. The only way there was a 25 pound ($40) cab ride. So, we got a cab…and sat in traffic with everyone driving from the England side. At about the time Bubba was teeing off, I was handing my backpack and camera, neither of which were permitted, to yet another person who could not understand what I was saying in my crazy America-talk. We now had our claim checks for our goods, our tickets around our necks, all our clothes on us, our umbrella, and a 20-minute bus ride ahead of us. But, don’t forget that now we can’t take the free shuttle directly back to the train station at the end of the day because my stupid bag and camera are trapped in Bmmmdeffyddgddzle Car Park completely in the opposite direction from where we needed to go. Wait, it gets better (and by better, of course, I mean infinitely worse).

We did get to ride in the top of a double-decker bus, which was something we wanted to cross off the list anyway, but we couldn’t really see out because of the driving rain on the front windows. They don’t feel the need to put wipers up top, I guess. We disembarked at the bus drop to which the non-VIP visitors to Celtic Manor were relegated. It was raining. We started walking.

And walking.

And stopping.

And walking.

And stopping.

And finally, after about a mile and a half, we saw a fairway of an actual golf course. After another soggy half-mile, we stepped into the muddy walkway that connected this road to where someone might actually be playing golf. We slogged through, past the 16^th, where no one was playing yet, and 15 and 14 and 12 and 10, and finally got to a hole that people were watching people play golf, in the rain. We crammed in next to the 5^th green and tried to spy through the sea of umbrellas to determine who might actually be on the course. Could it be Bubba, could he see our ‘G’ hats? Wait, they are both under our double hoods. Pull those off. A ball just landed by the green, an actual shot by an actual Ryder Cup golfer. Here they come, and they are wearing USA rainsuits. It is not Bubba. In fact, it is the team of Stewart Cink and Matt Kuchar. The two members of the team that went to the same college, Georgia…Tech. OK, fine. At least they’re players. Cink bends down, and places two tees on either side of his ball and picks it up. A car pulls up behind us. The Yellow Jacket team walks past us, doesn’t see our hats, gets into a car and drives away through the crowd. Play has been suspended due to the course being water logged. It is 9:30. There will be an announcement about further activity at noon.

One shot. By a Techie.

It rained. We walked in the rain. We walked up the enormous hill to the tents above the 16^th hole. It was a long way up a steep hill. We couldn’t get in, VIP only. We walked to the other tent alongside the 17^th hole. We couldn’t get in, VIP only. We went and stood in line, in the rain, for a Fish and Chip breakfast and took what would be a good spot by the 5^th green when they started playing again. Our rainpants were great, but you can’t really expect to sit in them without your butt getting wet. Our butts got wet, but the food was hot. Time passed… s l o w l y. Occasionally, it would stop raining for a minute, and you would think, “Why aren’t they out here playing now?” Then it would start to drizzle, then it would start to rain, then it would pour, and you would think, “They are never going to play today! Why are we still here, just cancel it!!” Then it would let up a little…you get the picture.

Noon – beg pardon, Midday – arrived. The announcement came on the screen as we stared. “Play is still suspended due to water logged course. The next announcement will be at 1300 hours.” So we waited for 1 p.m. to come, in the rain.

Sittin’, Waitin’, Wishin’

We brushed off some plastic seats in some stands where we could see the 5^th green. We huddled under the umbrella. Sometimes we held the umbrella sideways to block the wind and rain that was coming horizontally from our left. We had to make a move. There had to be a tent somewhere with a little space, not occupied by Very Un-Important Persons. Up past the first hole on the other side of numerous lakes in the cartpaths that we had started just plowing right on through in our saturated state, we found another long tent building with covered balconies with dry people sitting drinking both warm and cold beverages. We got to the door ready to walk in. We were stopped by a large Indian man. “I’m sorry, VIP only.”

I am not so radical as to believe that one should not receive a higher level of goods or services after paying more, but my nerves were fraying. My non-VIP tickets had cost over 300 American dollars. My son was soaked and chilled to the marrow, and though still not complaining, definitely learning to hate golf more and more by the second. How about you just look the other way for a second and let me just go buy an overpriced hot chocolate and stand dry for a minute. He pointed further along the way we had been walking and turned away.

At the end of the course, as far from the bus drop off as you can possibly be and still be on the property developed by Wales’ first billionaire, was a large white tent. And there were no guards. You could see open doors – full of unimportant people. We squeezed by and into the blissfully covered open room. I am certain it was as close to a refugee camp as bunch of middle-aged, multi-cultural, but completely Caucasian people had seen since the last days of the Battle of the Bulge. The soaked and huddled masses were scattered about standing, sitting and sleeping on the hard carpet, and they were still happy, because they were not ‘out there.’ 1300 hours came and went, there would be another announcement at 1400 to let us know when we be able to stand around and watch those golfers as they resumed their stupid games.

We sat as long as we could without claustrophobia completely overtaking us, before we went to check the skies again. It was raining. That was it. Sawyer was obviously done, and I was done too. There was no way they were conceivably restarting in this. We started the three mile hike to the bus drop. We had to walk past the train station bus on the way.

Beaten and broken we ascended the hill that had not seemed nearly so steep on the way down, where we actually got to exchange barbed comments on the fools who had chosen October in Wales for this greatest of team golf tournaments with some other folks with Georgia paraphernalia and normal accents. This was the highest point of the day since we made our train. Then we collected our camera and bag and were about to start the search for our second $40 cab of the day when we noticed another fellow who shared our plight, so we shared his cab. He was a businessman from London who couldn’t stay off the payphone he had just gathered from the car park. This allowed us to learn that his name was actually Ringo, and he seemed quite successful. This made it much easier to allow him to pay 20 of the 25 pound cost of the cab. The warm, dry train was like a resort, it’s position next to the bar car made it heaven itself.

Heaven didn’t last. The rain had slacked again as we were getting on, we stepped out of the station in Swansea to SUNNY skies. We trudged to the nearest pub to see Bubba Watson teeing off on the 5^th hole. I turned to Sawyer with the only thought I could muster. “I hate Wales.”

We sat and watched a couple of holes, but simply couldn’t restrain my disappointment, much less muster enthusiasm for the activity. We grabbed some pizza and a cab. A hot shower was nice. The morning had to show some improvement; little did we know that we had left the farm cottage Friday morning before the roosters outside our window woke up.