Darcy blames Finchem for Ryder Cup dates "disgrace"

Yesssss… Monday finishEamonn Darcy was laughing all the way to the bank as Europe regained the Ryder Cup. No, the Wicklow legend didn’t have a flutter on a European win but on the chances of a Monday finish.

At odds of 8-1 he couldn’t resist and when he finished counting his cash he had a cut at PGA Tour chief Tim Finchem over the late date that almost wrecked the Ryder Cup.

The classic encounter was pushed back to the first weekend in October for the first time because the PGA Tour  wanted to play out its $10m FedEx Cup before the biennial showpiece in Wales.

But after heavy rain forced a Monday finish for the first time in the competition’s 83-year history, 1987 hero Darcy was not a happy camper.

Darcy said: “The date is a disgrace. I have to blame the US tour and Tim Finchem for that. He’s protecting his tour but it’s just a disgrace that they have pushed the Ryder Cup into October in Europe.

“The Ryder Cup could have been just a complete farce with the weather.  They were lucky they only got torrential rain. I thought their problem was going to be the fog.

“My bet this week was that the wouldn’t finish on Sunday and it came in at 8/1.

“I played at Royal Portcawl recently with a guy who is a member at Celtic Manor and he said that they get terrible fog in the river valley there. Imagine it hadn’t lifted on Monday morning.”

Darcy played in four Ryder Cup teams, famously holing the winning putt as Europe triumphed on US soil for the first time at Muirfield Village in 1987.

After watching Graeme McDowell become the fifth Irish player to earn the winning point, Darcy said: “What can you say about the Irish at the Ryder Cup. We just seem to be in the right place at the right time.

“I am so proud of them, every one of them. They all put points on the scoreboard but I was really impressed by Graeme, Rory McIlroy and Ian Poulter and Monty never put a foot wrong.

“Graeme is a great bit of stuff with the way he was able to dig so deep and never gave anything away.
He’s a hell of a battler. He showed that at the US Open and he was able to draw on all his strength from Pebble Beach to pull off that win.”