The RyDov Cup, where the Tour began all those years ago, has staked its claim as both the marquee event of the year and also the final event of the year.

It is revered by all who have played in it, and each year brings a new story line, greater intrigued and fantastic competition and camaraderie.

The 2024 edition is no different, yet in many ways it is, it is the 10th match played and with that comes a level of expectation never really felt before. The Tour have also marked this occasion by diverging from the traditional selection method and have created a team of Founding players to face off against a team of newcomers and have put two players that epitomize the Tour entirely, Andy Love and Paul Gowens, in charge of them.

We’ve heard the team announcement, we’ve witnessed the verbal sparring of the Captains, now we’ve unleashed EuroDov Reporter on 9 years’ worth of RyDov Cup records and thousands of sheets of data from Tour events to give us a blow by blow prediction from each match so sit back, enjoy and get ready to argue your case against EuroDov Reporter.

Match 2 in the morning singles features Stuart Allan v Richard Mair.

Andy Love sends out his Vice Captain at number two, although he wants the VC in 2023, Allan also went out second for Team Love as they won the RyDov Cup.

Allan destroyed Allan Kinnear in 2023 with an impressive 7&5 win. His prowess at matchplay cannot be downplayed having won 3.5 points in his 6 appearances at the RyDov Cup, couple that with his 50% record in the singles at the Carnegie Cup and at the time of running his run to the semi-finals of the Tours Matchplay tournament he has pedigree.

It is fair to say the same however of his opponent. Mair has a 100% record in RyDov singles dispatching Daniel Peck in 2022 and RyDov stalwart Stephen Hedges in 2023. Mair has never gone beyond the 15th hole in the singles format, a sign of his dominance.

This match sees #3 v #5 in the Official Tour Rankings, it has 6 Tour wins combined (3 each) and is sure to be a real battle of golf.

Predicting a winner here is cruel, but much like the first one the handicap difference between these two players will likely make the difference. Allan’s game has made incredible leaps in 2024, but it requires him to play at the top of his game to win. Mair on the other hand is the definition of consistency (not to be confused with boring) his metronomic fairway finding drives, couple with an iron game that doesn’t go awry too often sees him maximize his handicap to deadly effect and win this one, but maybe after the 15th this year.

Team Love 1 – 1 Team Gowens