Ryder Cup memorabilia on offer at $15,000 a pop

RYDER CUP fever struck early at Oakland Hills last weekend as thousands of people, none of whom have tickets for the matches, availed of the chance to buy official merchandise and see the course. There was an added bonus - 20 pairs of tickets divided between daily and weekly ground tickets - were on offer in a free draw each day.An estimated 8,000 people flocked to Oakland Hills and spent in excess of $750,000 buying up Ryder Cup memorabilia. Merchandise costs from $2 to $15,000 dollars, with the prices at that top end of the scale being charged for limited edition pieces of art and jewellery. It's good to see Waterford Crystal featuring strongly with some lovely pieces among the 50,000 different products what will be on sale this week. You can even get something for the dog or cat in your life as in addition to logoed apparel, headwear, and other memorabilia, Ryder Cup pet accessories are also available. The shop is located between the second and eighth holes, which should be interesting come the weekend when the matches are underway. Crowds at the Golf Shop are expected to be queueing four and five deep for entry and that inevitably means plenty of noise and movement adjacent to these golf holes. The shop measures over 30,000 square feet and is being manned this week by 100 shop personnel. Yesterday was a quiet day as the official practice only gets underway today and the shopworkers were re-stocking. * * * THE modern Ryder Cup is an incredible cash cow, but the big winners here are charities and the PGA of America. First off, the US players and captain Hal Sutton have $2.6 million distributed in their name to their own charities and to the university of their choice. This is made up of $100,000 to a charity which Sutton and Co can name, and also to the university they pick to benefit to a scheme dubbed "Golf: for Business and Life." The idea here is to target college juniors, seniors and graduate students and teaches them how to use golf as a business tool in any chosen career. Those universities and other charities have received in total, including this year's contribution, £7.8m since the 1999 Ryder Cup at Brookline. Before Brookline, top players including Tiger Woods kicked up a fuss about the huge amount of money being made from the event while they gave their services for free. In fairness, they did not want a personal payment, and the option to nominate $200,000 per man for charity has worked out very well. Other events and schemes this week will provide 92 local charities with a total of $1.1m. These include a generous donation by Oakland Hills Country Club of 160 Ryder Cup season tickets to 76 charities who could then use them in an auction to raise funds. * * * NICE gesture by Phil Mickleson as he made his careful and painstaking early-morning survey of the opening holes of the course. Phil was being watched by a handful of "volunteers" as they call the marshals and tournament officials here. Most of them are Oakland Hills members, and the small group was duly respectful and silent while Phil selected a 6-iron and lashed it 198 yards pin-high to the par-3 third green. Then, unprompted, he turned and said "Morning guys." A little taken aback everyone replied "morning Phil," and then he said "Great job, the course looks great." That brief comment was greatly appreciated by the volunteers and was in contrast to Phil's monosyllabic "yes, no," brief TV interview later. * * * DEMAND for tickets has been huge. The PGA of America received a record 102,000 ticket requests, far surpassing the 80,000 they had for Brookline in 1999. The majority were disappointed, as only 14,000 were available to the general public and these were distributed by a draw which was held last Autumn. Anyone among the lucky 14,000 could buy only a maximum of two weekly tickets or four daily tickets per person. Galleries are limited to 38,000 per match day so there is a huge corporate element to the distribution of the other 24,000 highly prized tickets. Oakland Hills has 900 members and they were entitled to buy four each. Daily tickets, if you could get them, cost $40 for practice days and $75 for match days. * * * NOTE for betting fans: Hal Sutton has five rookies in his team, and the last time this happened for the US team, they lost at Oak Hill in 1995. Sutton's new boys are Chad Campbell, Chris di Marco, Fred Funk, Kenny Perry and Chris Riley. The "Five of 1995" were Brad Faxon, Tom Lehman, Jeff Maggert, Phil Mickleson, and Loren Roberts. In all they won ten points, but of those only two were in the singles. That match was mighty close, with Europe winning 14½ to 13½ and there won't be much to choose between them this week. - Liam KellyAt Oakland Hills