His Majesty King Felipe VI has accepted the Honorary Presidency of the Costa Brava – Barcelona bid to host the 2022 Ryder Cup, the world’s premier golfing event, which pits teams from Europe and the United States against each other once every two years.
The backing of the Royal Household comes in addition to the strong support already shown by the Spanish and Catalan public institutions involved in the bid. The announcement coincided with the visit of the 2022 Ryder Cup Evaluation Committee, who are paying a visit to Girona and Barcelona from 24 to 25 March in order to see the full details of the bid proposal at first hand. If the bid proposal is successful, the 2022 Ryder Cup will be held at the Camiral Resort, recently named European Golf Resort of the Year 2015.
His Majesty King Felipe VI has demonstrated strong support for Spanish sport on numerous occasions, both while he was Prince and since he has taken on the highest office in the Spanish State.
The Costa Brava – Barcelona bid proposal represents a complete sporting, cultural and tourist package, and it is competing with four other potential candidates to host the 2022 Ryder Cup: Germany, Austria, Italy and Portugal.
The five candidates have until 30 April, 2015 to officially present their bid dossiers to the Ryder Cup Europe Selection Committee. Following this date, the Ryder Cup Europe management team will conduct a detailed analysis of the bid proposals, with the assistance of an independent panel of experts, before announcing the successful host venue in autumn 2015.
The 2022 Ryder Cup will be the 44th edition of the biennial tournament, first held in 1927, contested between teams from Europe and the United States. Up until 1979 only British golfers played on the European team, before participation was extended that year to include players from across Europe.
Since then, nine editions of the tournament have been hosted in the United States, while in Europe five editions have been hosted in England, as well as one tournament held in Ireland, Wales and Scotland respectively, and one in Spain (Valderrama 1997). Future Ryder Cup tournaments will be held at the Hazeltine National Golf Club (Chaska, Minnesota, USA) in 2016; at Le Golf National (Paris, France) in 2018; and at Whistling Straits (Kohler, Wisconsin, USA) in 2020.