There’s absolutely nothing like it anywhere in the world of golf, arguably the world of sport, where the most talented golfers on the planet, masters of their craft, are reduced to quivering wrecks once engulfed by the noise, the tension and the enormity of the situation.
These are the feelings that only the first tee on the first morning at the Ryder Cup can provoke.
And for the 2023 Ryder Cup at Marco Simone Golf Club in Rome the first tee is following the recent tradition of having a huge grandstand surrounding it, but how many fans will it hold, and how can golf fans get themselves there?
How big is the first tee grandstand at the 2023 Ryder Cup?
Soon 👀🎥: @Lara__Arias pic.twitter.com/PuuEI6cKbWJune 21, 2023
Quite aptly in the ancient city of the gladiators, a golfing amphitheatre has been produced around the first tee at Marco Simone Golf Club.
The best golfers in the world will feel like they're being fed to the lions when they step out in front of this magnificent structure - with seats coloured the same Azzurri blue that Italy's football team have made famous.
Apparently having enough space for just around 5,000 fans, make no mistake that this will be the toughest tee shots to hit anywhere in golf.
Players will again walkthrough a tunnel underneath the 25m high superstructure, which will dull the noise slightly before they emerge and will be hit by a wall of sound and no doubt massive shot of nerves.
It will take some bottle to step up and stripe one off the first tee here come the Ryder Cup.
What are the biggest Ryder Cup first tee grandstands?
Rome is big, but it comes in as second best to the monstrous first tee stand that dominated in 2018.
That year, the Europeans took it to another level when they unveiled their gargantuan grandstand at the first tee at Le Golf National.
Just under 7,000 fans could fit into the hulking great structure that towered menacingly over the first tee box - and created a scene unlike anything we'd seen before in Ryder Cup history.
The size of the stand and the noise, coupled with the tension that a seemingly endless build-up produces would be enough for mere mortals to forget their own names, let alone how to swing a golf club.
We had Rory McIlroy wigs and team chanting at Celtic Manor in 2010 to create a great atmosphere if with a relatively modest first tee stand.
From there it's just started getting bigger and bigger, with around 1,200 fans around the first tee at Hazeltine in 2016 before Europe upped their game with about 3,000 up at Gleneagles for 2014.
Already that was enough to make even Major champions quake in their FootJoys, as Webb Simpson showed when he skied the opening tee shot of the competition and only just about made the fairway.
Even the starter in Scotland may have been feeling the nerves when introducing Simpson as Bubba Watson!
Team USA responded to Le Golf National by packing 4,000 American fans around the opening tee box at Whistling Straits last time out - with only a few Europeans making it due to Covid restrictions.
But still, nothing can touch what was produced in 2018 - even though Rome comes pretty close.
Can I get tickets for the Ryder Cup 1st tee?
In short, no as that ship has unsurprisingly sailed with all of the First Tee Experience upgrades that had been on sale all being sold out.
However, importantly and quite rightly there will be some unreserved seating at the first tee at Marco Simone GC that will be on a first-come, first-served basis.
That means that fans will be lining up at the crack of dawn and we could see an almighty scramble when the course opens up of fans racing towards the first tee hoping to get a seat.
And before you rest too easy with your First Tee Experience upgrade tickets, don't think for one minute you can just waltz in at the last minute so smugly take your seat when everyone else has been there since daybreak.
As the Ryder Cup website warns that even those with tickets need to be in their seats 45 minutes before the first scheduled tee time otherwise they risk losing their seats!
The first tee shots are iconic, the stand will go down in history and the last thing organisers want to see are empty seats in the flagship stand.
They want this huge stand packed, as it should be, and cranking out the maximum volume for what is one of the greatest scenes in golf.
