Golf’s Fiercest Tournament: Estimating the Impact of Home Course Advantage in the Ryder Cup

The Ryder Cup is a biennial golf tournament in which teams USA and Europe compete against each other in a match play format. The course venue for the tournament is on a rotational basis between the United States and Europe, switching off every time the tournament takes place. Using the concept of the home advantage in accordance with human capital and production theory, it is expected that the hosting country will perform better than the visiting side and have a better chance of winning. Using OLS and logistic regression models, it was found that there is a significant advantage favoring the team playing in their home country. Team USA is found to have a 34.2% increase in their probability of winning, based solely on if they are playing on a course in the United States. Other non-measurable variables such as the crowd and behavioral states of the athlete’s competing is found to have a positive effect on the home team winning