The 32nd Ryder Cup gets underway today at Valderrama in Sotogrande, Spain. USA Network covers today's action from 8:00am to 6:00pm ET, with NBC providing weekend coverage. NBC's coverage, on Saturday from 12:00-6:00pm ET, and on Sunday from 8:30am-12:30pm ET, will be produced by Tom Roy and directed by Bucky Gunts, with Dick Enberg and Johnny Miller in the 18th tower. The network, which has covered the Ryder Cup since '91, currently holds the exclusive U.S. TV rights through 2005 (NBC). NBC's coverage Saturday will be tape-delayed, while Sunday's matches will be joined live in progress (THE DAILY). A GROWING COMMODITY: The following lists ratings since NBC began covering the Ryder Cup in '91, broken down by day, total average, and hours of coverage in parenthesis:
| '91 COVERAGE | '93 COVERAGE | '95 COVERAGE |
| SAT | 2.2/7 2:00-6:00pm | 3.6/10 2:00-6:00pm | 2.5/10 8:00-12:30pm |
| — | — | 4.6/12 4:28-7:00pm |
| SUN | 2.8/8 11:00-3:38pm | 3.9/14 8:00-12:30pm | 3.9/12 9:00-3:32pm |
| TOTAL | 2.5/8 (8:38) | 3.8/12 (8:30) | 4.1/12 (13:35) |
ONLINE: Most of the major golf web sites are offering extensive coverage of the event, featuring Ryder Cup history as well as hole-by-hole guides to Valderrama and profiles of competing players. iGOLF, at igolf.com, has three reporters on site at Valderrama and will feature daily diaries from U.S. Ryder Cup players and iGOLF-TourGolfClub members Davis Love, Justin Leonard, Brad Faxon, and Captain Tom Kite, as well as European Team members Lee Westwood and Darren Clarke. iGOLF is also offering users the opportunity to receive e-mail updates after each round with the latest news from Spain....At golfweb.com, GolfWeb Contributing Editor Lorne Rubenstein will be filing daily reports from Valderrama and users can also sign up for the GolfTicker feature, which runs as a separate window on their desktop and is updated throughout the day....Golf.com, the NBC/Golf Digest site, offers a "virtual tour" of Valderrama and the "Golf.com Virtual Online Ryder Cup" where participants get to play an online version of the Links LS version of Valderrama....IBM's two sites, rydercup. com and 97rydercup. com, are the official sites (THE DAILY).
