The Big Apple bust-up between Team USA and Europe at Bethpage next year is a blockbuster Ryder Cup billing, but it became swiftly evident Tuesday that most golf fans have been priced out of a front row seat.
For Kevin Mountford, a golf fan from Chester, England, it’s a ‘farce’ that has potentially ruined a dream trip to New York for his wife’s birthday.
The flights were already booked. Hotel planning was underway. All that was left were the tickets. And even they seemed in the bag when Kevin received the golden ticket – a ticket sale access code.
Kevin and his wife had been willing to splash out for the $749.51 advertised on the Ryder Cup website – an amount that had already been balked at by many golf fans as ‘greedy elitism’ – but imagine their surprise when the PGA of America redirected them to resale site Seat Geek, where the promised tickets were already listed for a staggering $2,000.
‘It’s highly disappointing,’ Kevin told Daily Mail. ‘The content on the PGA’s site is misleading in terms of the ballot. The expectation that being randomly selected, you’d expect to have a chance of getting face value tickets and not be redirected to a resale site.
Team USA will take on the Europeans in the 2025 Ryder Cup in New York next September
‘From something that was meant to be an exciting few days in New York, it has been massively impacted, regardless of what we decide to do.
‘It’s bad for the golf enthusiasts that were willing to travel across the water to watch what is an amazing event that’s pretty unique across any sport really.’
Kevin revealed that tickets were being resold for over $2,000 for Sunday and Saturday entry, while others on social media claimed prices for Friday play were a staggering $1,000.
DailyMail.com has contacted the PGA of America for comment.
Fans were already seething when the prices for the biennial showdown between Team USA and Europe were unearthed last month.
Ahead of the Random Selection ticket sale this week, which only included Ryder Cup+ tickets, it was revealed that it would cost a staggering $255.57 (£195.82) for practice days, $423.64 (£324.60) for Wednesday, and a heart-stopping $749.51 (£574.29) for actual competitive action on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
The $750 was already about three times more than what it cost to pass through the turnstiles at Marco Simone last year or over at Wisconsin’s Whistling Straits, the home of the USA’s devastation of Europe in 2021.
But the staggering thousand-dollar price tags listed for entry to the People’s Country Club on Long Island doesn’t seem like they’re for the people at all. For Kevin, it seems like the extortion of golf’s loyal fanbase.
Tickets on sale to those with pre-access codes this week were listed for around $2,000
‘It sounds like they were already sold. There was nothing on the website to suggest you might be facing this level of kind of extortion,’ he said.
‘I’m pretty tuned in when it comes to kind of terms, conditions and all of that. But I genuinely expected for us to go through this link, be offered tickets and $749.51 and we would have paid that.
‘Even if it’s a big dynamic pricing, that’s one thing, but the fact that these were all verified resale suggests that all the allocation had gone before these ticket windows were even open.
‘It was a scam – not in terms of somebody hacking the site – but from the US PGA.’
‘I definitely feel deceived by the PGA,’ he added. ‘Even the FAQs that they had, they were a tad ambiguous in some respects. In fact, even on the website now, it’s still saying $749 but in reality that is misleading. I guess from certainly UK marketing and advertising perspective, I think that would be frowned upon.’
Kevin acknowledged that the Random Selection ticket sale for Ryder Cup+ tickets, which include food and non-alcoholic beverages in addition to grounds access, still operated on a first-come-first-served basis.
However, he maintained that after getting through the queue within 10 minutes of his window of accessibility opening, he should have had a fair shot at buying tickets at face value.
This isn’t his first rodeo either. Kevin has attended two previous Ryder Cups, cheering on Europe on home soil in Rome and at the K Club in Ireland in 2006.
On the PGA website, tickets had been listed as $749.51 for Friday, Saturday and Sunday play
The extortionate prices could see European fans avoiding making the trip for the showdown
Yet, he feared even if he does fork out to make the trip across the pond for the Big Apple bust-up, even with the raucous reputation of New York sports fans, the atmosphere at Bethpage will be missing one key ingredient: The away fans.
‘In my experience of Rome, there were a lot of Americans. The atmosphere was amazing. Okay, it was a European victory but there was real passion,’ he said.
‘The initial face value was already frowned upon by many. If you’re then having to pay for flight, hotels and everything else that goes with it in a city like New York, I think it’s going to put off a lot of genuine European fans.
‘I think for a lot of genuine fans traveling from Europe to New York, it would be a difficult one. It could become very corporate.’
And, not only could the outrageous prices dampen fans’ naturally rowdy, passionate love affair with the Ryder Cup by deterring Europeans – and even those closer to home – from making the journey out to Long Island, but Kevin admitted he could be put off US sporting events for life.
‘I think certainly from a US point of view,’ he conceded when asked if the this week’s ordeal could affect his decision to pursue the Ryder Cup in the future.
‘We were talking about going in 2026 and maybe getting some World Cup tickets but now, you start thinking. This is clearly a kind of top event from the US point of view, and it’ll certainly temper my enthusiasm, particularly if there’s kind of a ballot process.’
The extortionate pricing to gain entry to the People’s Club is a stain on the spirit of the Ryder Cup – and it appears the game of golf only has one factor to point the finger at.
‘Commerciality is killing the spirit of what is obviously a long standing and fantastic sport,’ Kevin insisted. ‘As a golfer, I’m very disappointed, but my disappointment primarily is at the US PGA, because I just think it’s a completely misleading farce.’
