Samuel Ryder, a British seed dealer, donated the trophy for a biannual golf championship that would alternate between British and American
locales. Professional golf associations chose the players for each team.
Matchplay, partners taking alternating strokes one day, and singles the next to have been the format; in 1963, a day of four-ball play was added (each player plays his own ball, and only the better score on each hole counts for each team.). The victorious team receives one point for each match.
The first official Ryder Cup was held in the United States in 1927 at Worcester Country Club in Worcester, Massachusetts, and was originally played between Great Britain and the United States.
Despite being high-profile events that bring in large amounts of money in television, sponsorship, ticketing, and
merchandise revenue, the Ryder Cup, its alternate-year non-European counterpart (the Presidents Cup), and its
women's equivalent (the Solheim Cup) remain outliers in the world of professional sports because the competing professionals receive no prize money.
