Why hasn't Ryder Cup ever been played here?

In this area's rich golfing history, there's a hole that's as difficult to decipher as any of the eighteen at Pine Valley: While Philadelphia could check off virtually every box on a list of what makes a great golf city, it has never hosted a Ryder Cup.

"With all the tradition here, it's really strange," said Doug Fraser, co-owner of Mays Landing Golf and Country Club and the son of a former president of the PGA of America, the organization that determines where the Ryder Cup will be played in the United States.

No place in America, famed architect Robert Trent Jones once said, has more great courses, two of which (Pine Valley and Merion) are annually rated among the nation's top five. Eight U.S. Opens have been held here, as have PGAs, U.S. Amateurs, Walker Cups, LPGA grand-slam events, and Senior majors. Several of the sport's most memorable moments - think Bobby Jones' 1930 Grand Slam or Ben Hogan's one-iron in 1950 - happened here. And a long list of legendary course designers and national officials have called Philadelphia home.

But the Ryder Cup, perhaps golf's single greatest attraction in 2016, has never gotten closer than Paramus, N.J., in 1935.

The international competition, held every other year at alternating sites in Europe and the States, begins Friday at Minnesota's Hazeltine Golf Club. It will attract enormous galleries and TV audiences and earn millions for its sponsoring entities, the PGA and Ryder Cup Europe. These biennial blood matches have become so popular, in fact, that many golfers with majors on their resumés call playing in one a career highlight.

So, with such a prestigious pedigree, why has Philadelphia missed out on such a prestigious event? Some of the reasons seem obvious: Few elite local courses could handle logistical demands that now surpass those for PGA Tour events; and, in the last 50 years, potential corporate sponsors have not been found as readily here.

Still, given the PGA's vague selection process, that "Why not?" is difficult to answer.

"Any course that has an interest to host the Ryder Cup needs to notify the PGA of America," said Kerry Haigh, the organization's chief championships officer. "We have them provide a lot of information on the golf course, the site and local community. We then visit any such interested site and make a determination of its viability. . . . The board of directors ultimately votes on the site to be selected."

While the United States Golf Association historically has had an informal course rotation for showcase events, it's difficult to detect a rationale in the Ryder Cup process.

Many in Philadelphia's golf community believe it's about more venal attributes than prestige and history.

"Like so many things, where the Ryder Cup is played usually comes down to politics or money," said local golf historian Pete Trenham.

While it has been played at venerable Open venues such as Hazeltine, Scioto, and, in 2012, Medinah, it has also been held at courses so new their roughs barely had time to grow.

In 1991, for example, the Ryder Cup host was the Kiawah Island (S.C.) Resort's Ocean Course, which didn't exist when it was selected and wasn't quite finished in time. In 1959, the locale was the new Eldorado Country Club in Indian Wells, Calif. That was a particularly strange choice since just four years earlier, the event took place 12 miles away at another relatively untested desert course, Thunderbird C.C.

The reason it landed at Eldorado, Thunderbird and, in 1947, Portland C.C., event historians contend, is because Robert Hudson, a wealthy food merchant who was both on the PGA advisory committee and a member at all three clubs, agreed in each case to pick up the British team's expenses.

"The Ryder Cup almost went broke," Trenham said. "Some people call Hudson the man who saved it."

It wasn't always a spotlight event. Begun in 1927, it was conceived as an effort to unite professional golf on both sides of the Atlantic. Until the geography of America's opposition was expanded in 1979 from Britain to all of Europe, and until Seve Ballesteros' passion infused the old event with a new juice, the Ryder Cup was a financial burden on clubs, said John Capers III, Merion's historian.

"Today it's such a large moneymaker for both [the PGA and Ryder Cup Europe] that it needs a very large venue," he added. "They are probably looking for a minimum of 40,000 tickets and would prefer 60,000 or more sales per day. There are very few clubs in this area that could handle those logistics."

The financial risk has practically vanished, of course, with the advent of television money and huge paying crowds, but the Ryder Cup still requires a substantial monetary commitment from the host club. Asked just how much, the PGA passed.

"We don't disclose that information," said PGA executive Bob Denney.

While it has never landed the event, the Philadelphia area has had at least two serious flirtations, the first in 1947.

Ryder Cup matches were suspended during World War II and, with Britain reeling financially afterward, nearly not resurrected. In 1946, when Ed Dudley, a former Philadelphia pro, was PGA president, Whitemarsh Valley expressed an interest in the '47 matches.

But the Montgomery County club wanted to do so in late September or early October. The British team had commitments that made those dates unworkable. That's when Hudson stepped forward, agreeing to pay the Brits' travel and accommodation expenses, if the event was held in Oregon.

Then in 1957, at its annual meeting, the PGA awarded the 1959 Ryder Cup to Atlantic City C.C., which just happened to be owned by Leo Fraser, then PGA president.

In May 1958, the PGA executive committee confirmed the earlier decision, scheduling it for Oct. 31-Nov. 1. "Shore Assured Ryder Cup Golf," read an Inquirer headline.

But something happened between then and November 1958, when the PGA reversed course and courses. It announced that, with Fraser's approval, the '59 Ryder Cup was moving to Eldorado.

"I know that the British team stopped at Atlantic City for some practice rounds on their way to California," said Doug Fraser, "Maybe that was consolation for losing the Ryder Cup. I'd love to know why it was moved."

Capers theorized the decision "had to be political or bought by the California people trying to promote the Palm Springs area."

Whatever the reason, golfers in an area where the game has been played since before the Civil War will have to follow another Ryder Cup from afar, dreaming that one day 89 years of history might be reversed.

One future possibility might be Aronimink, a former major venue that recently hosted two PGA events and will do so again in 2018 with the BMW Championship. A spokesman there didn't want to comment on its Ryder Cup chances.

"I think Aronimink would be extremely well-suited to host the Ryder Cup given the quality of the course, its spaciousness and accessibility," said Carl Everett, a lawyer and three-time Merion club champion. "However I doubt that the local business community would be as supportive as those in other cities."

ffitzpatrick@phillynews.com

@philafitz