Denmark was the only nation of seven to drop interest in hosting the biennial contest as Austria, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Turkey remain in the running.

Turkey had initially withdrawn their intentions to host the contest amid environmental concerns but reversed this decision last minute, according to Ryder Cup Europe.

President of the Turkish Golf Federation, Ahmet Agaoglu, had previously stated that accommodating the event would require the cutting down of an estimated 15,000 trees due to the course that had been selected, the Montgomerie Maxx Royal, having no grandstand.

"Unfortunately the problem of hosting the Ryder Cup in 2022 is that the Montgomerie course is a resort course and not designed for a big scale golf tournament like a Ryder Cup or even a Turkish Airlines Open," he said, according to news agency Agence France-Presse.

"If you notice there is not one grandstand on the golf course this week and there is just no place for them due to the enormous amount of trees.

"We have calculated we would have to cut down 6,000 to 7,000 trees and something like 15,000 trees on the Faldo Course just to make way for everything that goes with hosting a Ryder Cup.

"All the trees are numbered and licensed and environmentally it would be impossible to get permission to cut them down.

"Turkey is now a member of the G20 nations and the country is very sensitive about environmental issues, so we consider ourselves a developed country."

Europe secured a Ryder Cup hat trick earlier this year after a 16½-11½ victory over the United States at Gleneagles in Scotland ©Getty Images



Agaoglu stated that Turkey would instead bid to host the 2026 edition of the Cup, with a new course built to host the event.

It is unclear what swayed the view of the Turkish Federation, with nobody available to comment when requested by insidethegames.

Nonetheless, the six bidding nations will now prepare to host a series of meetings and inspection visits by Ryder Cup Europe officials between today and Thursday April 30, 2015, which is the date that formal submission of official bids need to be made - a date some ten weeks later than the original one given for submissions of Monday February 16, 2015.

Following the inspections, a period of detailed analysis of each bid by a management team working on behalf of Ryder Cup Europe, together with the assistance of an independent panel of experts, will be undertaken, with the announcement of the successful host country and venue for the 2022 Ryder Cup planned for autumn 2015.

United States is due to to host the 2016 and 2020 editions, at Hazeltine and Whistling Straits respectively, while Le Golf National on the outskirts of Versailles near Paris is scheduled to stage it in 2018. 

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


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