35th Ryder Cup matches DVD/video

Great shots, great drama - the TV golfer's guide to a memorable event recorded for posterity.

Bob Warters's picture
Tue, 14 Dec 2004
35th Ryder Cup matches DVD/video

35th Ryder Cup DVD or video

Price: £19.99 (DVD), £14.99 (video). 116 minutes

Viewing the 35th Ryder Cup matches on video or DVD is like nestling down on your sofa with a tin of Quality Street and watching ‘Pretty Woman’ or ‘the Great Escape’ – you never tire of it.

Even though you know the ending, each time you notice something different – a putt, a raise of the eyebrows, the body language between players, a remark on commentary.

As I sat through almost 26 hours of live broadcast at the time, as one of 550 million households into which it was beamed by satellite from Oakland Hills, I was wrapped up in the emotion and tension of it all and missed some of the subtleties.

Most have been captured on this superbly edited repercharge of a momentus weekend in September.

I hadn’t noticed, for example that Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson – the US dream team - stood at least 20 yards apart on the first tee of their opening fourball match with the joking Colin Montgomerie and Padraig Harrington, as US captain Hal Sutton prowled around nervously in his appropriately black stetson.

Nor did I recognise quite how much Paul Casey’s and David Howell’s second morning fourball win over Chad Campbell and Jim Furyk, ‘quintessentially sucked the wind out of American sails’ as the narrator commented so succinctly.

This recording uses far more camera angles than I saw in Sky coverage at the time and it was refreshing to have the commentary of Warren Humphreys, Renton Laidlaw and the enthusiastic South African Denis Hutchinson from the Golf Channel, a creating a different atmosphere to Ewan and ‘The Colonel’.

On the final day, the team momentum achieved by Sergio Garcia over Phil Mickelson around the turn was crucial and turned the screw on the US coffin, long before Monty added the final nail.

Verdict

This is nearly two hours of drama, emotion and passion - the perfect gift for a TV golfer. Pass the chocolates, please.

Golfmagic rating: 9/10