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 9 in the morning singles features Stuart Sutherland v Callum McNeill.

Well, this one is quite the match-up.

We’ve got RyDov Cup ever-present Stuart Sutherland versus Callum McNeill making just his 3rd appearance.

Let’s look at the history books. Sutherland has won 5.5 points in his 9 appearances, a win rate of 61%. McNeill has won 1.5 points a point win rate of 75% - he has never lost a match in his two appearances.

If we cast our mind back to 2023, McNeill – recently relegated to Q-School (a fate he dodged due to players withdrawing from OoM in 2024) was roundly put to the sword for 9 holes by fellow relegated player Daniel Peck. However, he transformed into something of a machine on the back nine and destroyed Peck 2Up and also lifted the final Major of the year.

Sutherland however has a track record of beathing players with better handicaps than him, but he also hasn’t lost by any great margin since 2018 – showing his ability to hang tough in matches right to the end.

Looking at the hear and now, this pair couldn’t have a more contrasting season. Sutherland won back-to-back Order of Merit events at the St Andrews Open and Kinghorn Classic and currently sits 6th in the Order of Merit. McNeill however is over 3000 points adrift of Sutherland at the bottom of the OoM staring relegation in the face again in 2024.

McNeill still its inside the Official Tour Rankings top-10 but his position is slowly becoming untenable whilst Sutherland is on the rise and inside the top-15 at 14th place at the time of writing.

All things considered, and despite McNeill’s heroics in 2023, I have to give this one to Stuart Sutherland and Team Love.

Team Love 5.5 – 3.5 Team Gowens