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To borrow a phrase from the famous sign that adorns Bethpage Black in New York, site of the 2025 Ryder Cup: WARNING. The Ryder Cup is an extremely expensive event that we only recommend to golf fans with very positive cash flow.
The Ryder Cup has announced ticket prices for next year’s event, and thank goodness they are high. A family of four will spend three thousand dollars on tickets just to get through the doors – and that’s if they win the lottery to buy tickets. The Ryder Cup is one of the exceptional events on the sporting calendar, but the 2025 version will certainly test – pun well intended – the loyalty of American fans.
Here, via the official Ryder Cup websiteare the costs of a day ticket, depending on the day you wish to attend:
That’s $255.27 for two days of practice, $423.64 for the “celebrity matches” and the opening ceremony, and a whopping $749.51 for each of the three match days. But hey, at least food and (non-alcoholic) drinks are included!
The easiest competition, of course, is the Masters, where tickets cost about a fifth of the price of the Ryder Cup, and you could feed an entire village on $750 worth of Masters food. (Merch, of course, is a very different story.) Sure, the Masters could charge Ryder Cup-level prices and Augusta National Golf Club would still sell out, but can the Ryder Cup? (Probably, honestly.)
The irony of these high prices at Bethpage Black is that the course itself is one of the most notable public courses in the United States, a testament to the inclusive nature of golf. Green fees are reasonable – a New York resident could play the course about 10 times for the price of a Ryder Cup ticket – and getting a tee time depends on your ability to use a cell phone, not the knowledge or not of your great-grandfather of the elites of his time. .
There is, however, a more subtle reason behind the high entry costs, beyond the simple profit motive. The Ryder Cup is golf’s most purely partisan event, with crowds that rival European soccer or college football for vocal ferocity. Heading into the upcoming Ryder Cup, both sides of the US-European division were very concerned about the expected behavior of fans in the New York area. (European fans are just as passionate, just swearing in different accents and languages.)
The high prices could do much to deter the kind of fan likely to curse Rory McIlroy. The result could end up being an unusually lukewarm crowd, which is exactly what the Ryder Cup doesn’t need. Home-field advantage is not only palpable at Ryder Cups, it’s practically necessary; the home team has won eight of the last nine Ryder Cups. There’s a conversation to be had about leveling the playing field at the Ryder Cup, but is charging for part of the gallery the right move? We will know in a year.