GREEN BAY (NBC 26) -- Northeast Wisconsin’s normally enthusiastic golf community is full of frustration following ticket issues involving one of the sport's biggest events.
The Ryder Cup is coming to Kohler next September, but now many Wisconsin fans might not be able to go. This includes NBC 26’s Matt Jarchow. Earlier this month, people who signed up for tickets got an email with a headline: “You're in.”
We know now that didn't guarantee tickets.
Wednesday morning, the Ryder Cup opened a ticket lobby, basically a line for people to buy tickets. Within a few hours, they had sold out, leaving many people without a shot at getting tickets to an event they've looked forward to for years.
"Everybody was geared up, looking forward to supporting the home crowd, being in the area as well,” said Eric Smith at the Mid Vallee Golf Course. “I think a lot of people were under the impression that they'd have a fairly good chance at obtaining tickets, and just kind of a little disappointed in regards to the whole outcome of it."
Another source of frustration is the fact that the Ryder Cup does have an official ticket partner on the secondary market. When we looked this afternoon, tickets for Friday were starting at $520, almost three times the original price of $185.
Ryder Cup officials are saying very little about this incident so far. We reached out to officials on Thursday with questions but did not hear back.
They did post to Facebook on Wednesday saying, “We appreciate the enthusiasm and apologize for the inconvenience.”
The post then linked to that secondary ticket market.
