Rough justice: Inside the Ryder Cup golf course where grass is grown to trip up Team USA

The head greenskeeper at Marco Simone Golf Club, Lara Arias, tells Lawrence Ostlere how she and a team of 20 have been growing thick rough to favour their fellow Europeans at this weekend’s Ryder Cup – following a long tradition of crafty collusion

Greenskeepers prepare the ground for the Ryder Cup at Marco Simone Golf Club (AP)

The gates in the walled perimeter of Marco Simone Golf Club were shut for three weeks, other than to allow a couple of secretive scouting trips by each team. No one else was allowed in, not to snoop around and certainly not to swing a golf club on the perfectly manicured turf. Inside, a team of 20 greenskeepers and more than 100 volunteers have been working around the clock to welcome Europe, America and more than 100,000 spectators to the 2023 Ryder Cup.

It is a beautiful setting in the Lazio countryside surrounded by terracotta hill-towns and undulating farmland. The highest point of the course, the 12th tee, holds panoramic views all the way to Rome. Now the head greenskeeper, Lara Arias, is putting the finishing touches on the 350-acre plot, having spent three years preparing for this moment.

“I explain to the team that we don’t have time to make mistakes,” Arias says. “If someone chooses the wrong setting on the machine – for example, I’m going to make this higher cut of 9mm, but I choose 4mm – then we are going to make a ‘scalp’... this is something that doesn’t recover in a few days.”