PGA Official likens Ryder Cup to World Series and NBA Finals, defends pricey $750 tickets
Golf fans gasped at the eye-opening prices for the Ryder Cup, but officials defended them for various reasons.
The biggest topic in golf this week has had nothing to do with play itself. Instead, golf fans—and many journalists alike—have expressed agitation over the astonishing prices for next year’s Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black.
If you want to see the Red, White, and Blue take on the best players from Europe on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, you must pay $750 to attend. Tuesday and Wednesday practice rounds cost $255, per the Ryder Cup’s FAQ webpage. Thursday’s Opening Ceremony, which includes Celebrity and Junior Ryder Cup matches, lists tickets at $424 a pop.
“We view ourselves as a tier one event on par with the World Series or an NBA Finals Game Seven,” Ryder Cup Championship Director Bryan Karns said on Sirius XM Radio Wednesday.
“When we look at pricing, we are able to tap into data from all of these different venues. Our partner, Delaware North, operates the Boston Bruins and Boston Celtics. They operate Lambeau Field. We are able to see what people pay. What people do. That really drove this. Again, our position in this landscape is, where do we view ourselves? That’s the reality.”
The Ryder Cup takes place once every two years, rotating between the United States and Europe. That means it happens on American soil once every four years, and it also rotates to various places across the country. No course has ever hosted the Ryder Cup twice, although Hazeltine National Golf Club will change that in 2029, the next time the United States will host this competition. Hazeltine last hosted in 2016.
The 2025 Ryder Cup will be the second time New York State will play as host. Thirty years ago, Oak Hill Country Club in Rochester welcomed the American and European teams to Western New York. The visitors stormed back during Sunday Singles and shocked the home side, turning Oak Hill into ‘Choke Hill’ for the U.S.
Nevertheless, prices have increased exponentially since 1995 and have climbed substantially since 2021, when Whistling Straits in Wisconsin hosted the Ryder Cup. The PGA of America sold tickets for less than half this year’s price, around $350 apiece.
Better yet, if you happen to be a New York resident, you can play Bethpage Black for $75, one-tenth of the price of admission to next year’s Ryder Cup. That’s pretty ironic, considering Bethpage Black is known as ‘The People’s Country Club’ for its affordability and public access.
“I would be lying to you if I didn’t say that the initial gut feeling when people see the price is that they’re high. They’re certainly on par with the level of events at this level,” Karns said two weeks ago at a Metropolitan Golf Writers Association press conference at Bethpage Black.
“I’m just thinking of the Georgia-Alabama game [last month], and it was $1500 bucks to sit at the 20-yard line. So it’s $750 to come to the Ryder Cup on Friday, and that ticket price includes our concession program. So that’s something we’ve done in the last three years. We’ve moved from a traditional concession model to having it all included in the ticket. So that, again, it increases the price but delivers on a different level experience.”
All tickets for next year’s Ryder Cup include unlimited food and non-alcoholic beverages.
“I think the Super Bowl does something similar,” Karns added.
“The Super Bowl is almost impossible to get tickets for if you’re a die-hard Kansas City Chiefs fan and want to go. Odds are you’re either going to have to pay a corporate amount, or you just don’t get to go.
“But we’re going to have a program after the ticket sale that will try to identify true New Yorkers. It’s a working program, but we have an allotment geared toward making it accessible again. So it doesn’t feel like this is all outside. We want this to have the fingerprints of New Yorkers all over it.”
How that program will look remains to be seen.
Yet, given the high demand for this event—only 10 percent of those who enter the lottery will receive access to tickets—the ‘True New Yorker’ program will likely include an extremely limited number of fans.
In all, the PGA of America hopes to have 50,000 fans on the course each day.
“There are people who have the Ryder Cup on their bucket list in the same way that someone has a Yankees World Series Game on their bucket list,” Karns added on Sirius XM.
“The demand for this event is at an all-time high. So, we wanted to make sure we priced this appropriately.”
Jack Milko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. Be sure to check out @_PlayingThrough for more golf coverage. You can follow him on Twitter @jack_milko as well.