All Star Cup
Host
Kirsty Gallacher and Jamie Theakston (2005)
Co-hosts
Commentators:
Terry Wogan and Ewan Murray (2005),
Andrew Castle and Ronnie Corbett (2006)
Roving reporters:
Anna Walker,
Bradley Walsh,
Jonathan Wilkes
Broadcast
Gallowgate and TWI for Sky One, 27 August to ? 2005
Gallowgate and TWI for ITV1, 26 to 28 August 2006
Synopsis
The All*Star Cup, to be typographically correct, was bandied around ITV for a long while. The idea of a celebrity version of the Ryder Cup seemed like a good one, but the problem of sucking up whole evenings of airtime with golf was a problem for the network. Not so for Sky One, rarely troubling the ratings, so they picked it up instead.
The format was extremely simple - play fourball over three days, the first one being a practice only. One point for each hole you win, first to 90.5 points wins. There was also a Shoot for a Million competition at the very end where the golfers aimed for a hole-in-one to win £1m for a home viewer. Closest to the pin wins a holiday at La Manga instead. If only Superstars was still being filmed there, eh?
The likes of Joe Pesci, Andy Garcia and Samuel L. Jackson were promised but in the end we ended up with Kenny G, Mark Spitz and Cheech Marin (er...?) Nevertheless, the first event was a success, with everything going down to the wire. Europe won by 2 points.
Participants
Those teams and results in full:
2005
- Team Europe: Boris Becker, Matt Dawson, Chris Evans, Gavin Henson, Ronan Keating, Jodie Kidd, Damian Lewis, James Nesbitt, Steve Redgrave, Peter Schmeichel, Ian Wright, Catherine Zeta-Jones
- Team USA: Michael Chang, Michael Douglas, Patrick Duffy, Boomer Esiason, Kenny G, Steve Hytner, Cheryl Ladd, George Lopez, Rob Lowe, Cheech Marin, Haley Joel Osment, Mark Spitz
- Team Europe win 91 to 89.
2006
- Team Europe: Chris Evans, Bruce Forsyth, Ruud Gullit, Ronan Keating, Ross Kemp, Jodie Kidd, Damian Lewis, James Nesbitt, Phil Tufnell, Bradley Walsh, Ian Wright
- Team USA: William Baldwin, Michael Brandon, Richard Burgi, Alice Cooper, Patrick Duffy, Michael Johnson, Chazz Palminteri (replaced by James Keach (Jane Seymour's husband) after an injury), Meat Loaf, Aidan Quinn, Richard Schiff, Jane Seymour
- Team Europe win 102 to 78. Brucie makes the winning putt.
Key moments
Steve Redgrave's monster putt on the 18th to put Europe back in contention.
Inventor
See also
Although naturally Full Swing did all this first. And what about Brucie's Pro-celebrity golf tournaments?