Bernard Gallacher is feeling the Ryder Cup fever

Bernard Gallacher reckons Europe are strong favourites.

Ryder Cup excitement is set to reach fever pitch with golf’s greatest team competition just days away from teeing off.

More than 250,000 fans from all over the world are expected to flock to Gleaneagles to see Paul McGinley’s Team Europe go head-to-head with the USA.

Sunday Post columnist and former captain Bernard Gallacher is one person who is delighted the competition is coming home.

It was the morning of June 6, 1921 and the crisp green grass of the Gleneagles fairways was luminous in the bright summer sun.

“Pretty as a picture,” said New Yorker Walter Hagen gazing out across the stirring scene.

“If a man can’t play golf here then he can’t play,” said his countryman Wild Bill Melhorn from Texas.

“Aye,” agreed Aberdonian George Duncan proudly. “This is as beautiful as golf gets.”

The golfers who were gathered on that warm morning legends every one weren’t to realise it at the time, but they were about to strike the first ball in a match that would go on to become one of the most prestigious, eagerly-anticipated sporting competitions in the world.

For it was the birth of the Ryder Cup.

History may record that the tournament officially began in 1927, when Hagen’s USA hammered Ted Ray’s Great Britain at the Worcester Country Club in Massachusetts, but Gleneagles in 1921 was the first time a USA team set foot on Scottish soil to take on Britain’s best.

If the heart and spirit of the Cup lies anywhere, it is here. So when once again our American cousins make their way to deepest Perthshire this Friday it will be a homecoming of sorts for the competition.

And no one should underestimate the significance or scale of the Ryder Cup.

It may have been somewhat overshadowed by all the rant and bluster of the referendum, but this is deemed to be the third largest sporting event in the world, after the World Cup and the Olympics. Tourism bosses predict it will be worth more than £100 million to the Scottish economy. Worldwide television viewing alone is estimated to be worth around £40m in direct marketing benefit.

A 54-strong team of greens staff have overseen a transformation of the Jack Nicklaus-designed course since a major face lift began in 2011.

A massive 50,000 tonnes of earth have been moved, 30,000 square metres of new turf laid and 1,000 tonnes of new sand used in the bunkers.

This is a once-in-a-generation event for Scotland it will be the first time in more than 40 years and only the second time in its history that the tournament has been staged in Scotland.

And few appreciate its importance more than Sunday Post columnist and three-time Ryder Cup captain Bernard Gallacher, who took on the Americans the last time Scotland hosted the clash at Muirfield in 1973.

He says: “This is the one golf event that reaches out to all sports fans. It’s an amazing spectacle.

“It has changed so much in the 45 years since I was first lucky enough to play in it as a 20-year-old at Royal Birkdale in 1969. Now there are journalists from all over the world and the crowds are much bigger. Gleneagles will feel like an arena for the players rather than a simple golf course.”

But it hasn’t always been this way. Back in the 1970s the competition was a shadow of what it is today.

Bernard explains: “Playing in the States in the ’70s, it felt like the Ryder Cup was on its knees. We were losing badly and it wasn’t much fun. In 1975 at Laurel Valley, the Americans had already won the Cup before the final round of singles matches.

“But it’s thanks to Jack Nicklaus that the Ryder Cup is what it is. He told Lord Derby, the President of the PGA that Great Britain and Ireland had to become a European team for the match to survive.”

One man in particular inspired the “Golden Bear” to take action.

“Jack had seen a young Spaniard called Seve Ballesteros emerge,” says Bernard, “and he realised what a difference he could make. Now we live in an era where players use their own private planes to get to tournaments, but that’s a far cry from many years ago.

“Back in 1971, Neil Coles was a member of our team. But he was a non-flyer and had to find another way of getting to America.

So he took a boat to New York and then hired a car to take him nearly 1000 miles to St Louis.

It all meant he had to set off about two weeks before the Ryder Cup was going to take place!

“Fast forward 20 years and when I was first captain we chartered Concorde to take us to Charleston in South Carolina. First, Concorde did a fly over the course itself before landing.

“There were hordes of people waiting for us at the airport. When we got off, we felt like the Beatles!”

Looking ahead to this week, Bernard reckons Europe are strong favourites.

He says: “We have Rory McIlroy, the world No.1. There’s also US Open Champion Martin Kaymer, Henrik Stenson, Justin Rose, I could go on.

And the USA fly over without three of their best players in Tiger Woods, Dustin Johnson and Jason Dufner.

“I’m expecting another close contest, but I think the Gleneagles factor should edge it our way. The Europeans know this course.”

Whatever happens it’s certain to be a weekend of nail-biting excitement and golfing glory when the tournament finally comes home.

And if things aren’t going Europe’s way, don’t worry. As we saw at Medinah two years ago, when it comes to the Ryder Cup, a miracle might not be out of the question.

Report by Graham McKendry and Chae Strathie