Las Vegas, History, And Another Ryder Cup Defeat For The United States In Europe

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In the dead of night, things were happening.

The 2018 Ryder Cup took place at Le Golf National in Paris, meaning that fans in the United States faced interesting circumstances to consume the festivities. With the first tee time of the three-day event set for 2:10 am ET on Friday “morning,” it might be difficult to picture much of a desire to view live golf in America but, well, the Ryder Cup is different.

While most sports fans may seek out a trip to Las Vegas with an eye toward the Super Bowl, a prestigious fight or March Madness, a late September journey centered on the Ryder Cup for at least one person. With travel challenges including a maddening delay on the tarmac, a Delta flight arrived in the desert on Thursday evening and with only 45 minutes until the first tee shot of an event that actually begins on Friday.

Undeterred, a plan was in place to observe the scene (beginning at 11:10 pm local time on Thursday) and moves were executed to transport from McCarran Airport to South Point, the one sportsbook in Vegas that has (and advertises) 24-hour access. Everything went according to plan until, in short, the Golf Channel broadcast was nowhere to be found on any of the dozens (no exaggeration here) of screens available.

On the surface, this wasn’t an overall shock, especially given the time parameters in place. Most live sports aren’t taking place in the dead of the Las Vegas night and, beyond that, golf isn’t exactly the perfect sportsbook entity in a traditional sense. Still, there were a few die-hards in the same predicament, voicing joint displeasure in the challenge ahead.

Mercifully (and after some greased palms), viewing was secured after returning to the Strip and the question of “can we pull this off?” emanated. Most sports journalism is inherently supposed to be unbiased, but, to put it plainly, that will never be the case for this particular event. The history is too rich, the lines are firmly drawn and, even if patriotism can be a complex topic through the prism of sports, it is also a real thing when it comes to the Ryder Cup.

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