ITALY TO HOST RYDER CUP IN 2022

The Marco Simone Golf and Country Club in Italy is to host the Ryder Cup in 2022. The club, which is located 10 miles outside of Rome, will follow in the footsteps of Valderrama in Spain (1997) and Le Golf National in France (2018), as only the third country in mainland Europe to host the matches.

The Ryder Cup committee announced the winning bid on December 14, citing Italy’s proposal as ‘consistently strong across all areas’.

Marco Simone Golf and Country Club’s golf course is to undergo a complete reconstruction, while the bidding team also guaranteed that the Italian Open’s prize fund is to be increased from its current €1.5m, to €7m for 11 years, beginning in 2017.

While Italy celebrated, bidding teams from Austria, Germany and Spain were left to count their losses after investing considerable sums in their country’s bids.

The Ryder Cup committee was led by European Tour chief executive Keith Pelley, with the evaluation team including Europe’s Ryder Cup Director Richard Hills; Ryder Cup Match Director Edward Kitson; European Tour’s Director of Property and Venue Development David MacLaren, and European Tour CEO Jonathan Orr.

Pelley said: “I would like to offer my congratulations to Italy, whose bold and ambitious bid has seen them become the host nation for the 2022 Ryder Cup. History has shown time and again that the Ryder Cup is pure theatre with the players the stars, and there is no question that Rome will provide a wonderful backdrop for one of the great occasions in world golf.

“In addition, we have exciting plans for the development of the European Tour and our Schedule for the benefit of all our players, and Italy shares this ambition. Their commitment to the Italian Open will provide an inspiring benchmark.”

Richard Hills said: “The Italian bid was consistently strong and impressive across the board in terms of infrastructure, commercial structure and government support. The plans outlined for the golf course at Marco Simone are spectacular, alongside the commitment to develop all levels of golf in Italy, and we look forward very much to working with the Italian 2022 Ryder Cup team over the coming years.”

Since the inception of the European Tour in 1972, Italy has hosted 54 tournaments, with nine Italian players having lifted a total of 20 European Tour titles between them. In addition Italy has played host to 82 European Challenge Tour events and eight tournaments on the European Senior Tour.

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