The Ryder Cup is entrancing all the citizens of Newport. It’s an event of such magnitude that the city is re-inventing itself to welcome the golf world.
The metamorphosis of Newport from industrial city to leisure haven will be complete before the first golf ball is struck on the magnificent Celtic Manor Resort in 2010. There was initial surprise at the choice of a venue in the heart of rugby and soccer-loving territory in Wales. It’s all thanks to local billionaire Terry Matthew’s dream of building a world-class golf course around the cottage hospital where he was born. He fully deployed his entrepreneurial skills in winning the fiercely competitive battle for the cup’s first Welsh location.
Ireland is presently aglow with anticipation of this year’s event. No tourist can enter the country without vivid reminders of the great event. And in Scotland, golf tourism brings in approximately £175m a year. The Wales Tourist Board has said the coming event may be the reason for an already measurable increase in the number of people taking Welsh golf breaks in the past 12 months.
Intense world attention on rural Newport and its glorious hinterland will help bury its formerly workaday image. The Celtic Manor Resort bestrides beautiful rolling hills with views of Wentwood Forest, the Bristol Channel and Wales’ only fenland, the Gwent levels. Short drives away are the Brecon Beacons, Tintern, Cwmcarn Forest and the Wye Valley.
Within the city is a century-old engineering treasure, the lovingly restored Transporter Bridge. It glides magically across the world’s second-highest rise and fall of tide. Roman Caerleon is among the top visitor centres in Wales. A new attraction in this delightful village is mysteriously named arts centre the Ffwrrwm. It accurately describes itself as ‘Paradise Found’.
Transport arrangements are in hand to move up to 50,000 people a day to the golf course itself. Many other packages are planned to charm the visitors with excursions to discover the hidden delights of Gwent. A legacy fund of £2m has been allocated to finance improvements at existing golf courses in the city.
Robust, exuberant and intriguing, Newport now likes to be known as Gateway City. As the sunset industries fade, the town is luminous with hi-tech enterprises. This self-belief is brazenly rampant in the Ryder Cup location itself. It’s massive, magnificent and world-class. The metamorphosis of industry and business life has been a thrilling, heart-stopping adventure. The collapse of local industry was dreadful, but optimism and the ability to fight back are now dominant. Newport has hit the ground thinking.
The new Newport will rise in 2010. It is the target year for completion of the £200m improvements. A new bridge over the Usk is the first part of the transformation. There will be an annual golf and business major event that that will alternate between Newport and the Mission Hills Resort in Shenzhen in China. The intense events of a single week will long continue to pay dividends of prosperity and pride.