Ryder Cup: Record numbers, extraordinary success - Chimenti

(ANSA) - ROME, OCT 3 - The 44th Ryder Cup in Rome, the first edition to be held in Italy, notched up record numbers and was an extraordinary success, Italian Golf Federation President Franco Chimenti said Tuesday after Team Europe's 16.5-11.5 win over Team America Sunday.
    The event attracted 271,191 spectators, for an average of 45,865 a day over the six days, culminating in three days of play, at the Marco Simone Golf & Country Club at Guidonia Montecelio just outside the Italian capital, he said.
    This compared to expectations of a quarter of a million spectators for the world's third most important sporting event, said Chimenti, and was "the fruit of work that started on the day we were assigned the competition on December 14, 2015".
    The director general of the Rome Ryder Project, Gian Paolo Montali, said the event will "go down in the history of sporting events, and of golf in particular", with the European stars dominating the first two days and the US aces staging a gritty but ultimately vain fightback on day three. (ANSA).