Every two years, hundreds of thousands flock to witness golf’s premier event, the Ryder Cup.

The showpiece event pits Europe against the US over three days of competitive, often raucous action – both on the green and off it – just ask Rory McIlroy. The latest edition was even attended by a man who is often found on a golf course, US President Donald Trump.

But while spectators and even some players shared obscenities, nearly 250,000 fans attended the 2025 Ryder Cup, held in New York back in September. With so many in attendance – including DCD – those lucky enough to be there wanted to document via their smartphones and social media that they were to see Europe take the title, seeing off a late US comeback.

Keeping so many people connected was a task afforded to Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), the official technology partner for the event.

HPE, through Aruba Networking, provided WiFi connectivity across the Bethpage Black course in partnership with network integrator Safari Solutions. Beyond WiFi; HPE also provided a private 5G network and AI to the officials and spectators on site.

Building on Rome

The 2025 iteration wasn’t the first time that HPE has provided WiFi connectivity at a Ryder Cup event, previously doing so in Paris, France, in 2018 and then in 2023 in Rome, Italy.

However, it was the first time the vendor had been tasked with providing connectivity on US soil, replacing rival Cisco in the process to provide WiFi over the 6GHz frequency band via its WiFi 6E.

HPE’s journey with the Ryder Cup, which is run by two golf organizations – the European Tour and the US-based PGA – began back in 2018, says James Robertson, VP CTO industry strategy at Aruba.

“We were part of the organization at the time that put together the networking for the Paris event, and that was setting the groundwork for what was going to come next,” Robertson says. The firm “built a network that connected all aspects of the course” before stepping up its build in Rome three years ago, delivering infrastructure that included a private 5G network for backhaul.

For the 2025 edition, HPE had to think even bigger. The vendor had a total coverage area of around 1,500 acres to handle at Bethpage Black.

HPE deployed 170 CX switches, 650 WiFi 6E access points, 25 Aruba Network UXI sensors, which estimate user experience by testing critical metrics for network availability, and 67 AI-enabled video cameras across the course.

All of this was managed from HPE Aruba Networking Central, which was located inside a trailer on-site.

Aruba and another HPE company, Athonet, acquired in 2023, played key roles in delivering this network, Robertson says.

He tells DCD that the network build-out took 12 weeks in total, with HPE creating “one of the largest, if not the largest, temporary networks in the world.”

“For most, twelve weeks to build an infrastructure the size of a small city from nothing would be an amazing achievement alone, but then to add on top the analytics capabilities, to bring AI-driven insights, to operate the infrastructure in that same timeframe was incredible,” Robertson says.

All roads lead to AI

One of HPE’s main focuses during the Ryder Cup was around Artificial Intelligence (AI).

The technology was deployed in several ways during the event, both for the end user and to deliver telemetry data for HPE.

HPE used AI to analyze spectator behavior, including monitoring queue times. It was also put to work to monitor merchandise, alcohol, food, and beverage sales, notifying suppliers of what they need to order more of.

As well as being used as a way to maximize revenue, AI was also tracking golf carts across the 1,500-acre course. Organizers explained that AI-enabled tracking was used to track the carts in case they ran out of charge and needed to be located. HPE provided the tracking and networking technology (using HPE Aruba Networking).

This data was fed into the Operational Intelligence Dashboard, allowing organizers to monitor golf cart movement and optimize traffic flow.

“With AI we can make decisions on real insights instead of assumptions,” noted Brandon Haney, director of championship operations for PGA of America.

“The data we were able to collect at this year’s Ryder Cup was immensely helpful during the week, but it’s just as important for us in the future. Data drives decisions, and this data is going to be very helpful for what we do next.”

HPE was able to aggregate critical information from across the course into the Connected Intelligence Center, via 170 HPE Aruba Networking switches and 650 wireless access points. This center is built on HPE Private Cloud AI, which is an integrated rack of compute and storage that ran on-premises at the event.

“We’re showcasing what is the art of the possible when you start to bring compute, storage, AI processing together to solve real-world problems,” says Robertson, who points out that this data will help shape planning for future Ryder Cups.

The importance of WiFi

Although US carrier T-Mobile had a big presence at the Ryder Cup as the exclusive 5G network partner for the Ryder Cup, roaming via a network carrier wasn’t something everyone was able to do.

While many of the crowd were home supporters and based in the US, as expected, there was a large following for Team Europe as well.

But roaming fees for international travellers can be eye-wateringly expensive, even for the bare minimum data allowance. According to Robertson, this emphasizes the importance of WiFi.

“If you assume 50 percent of the crowd are tourists, and 50 percent are from US who are carrying their device that’s obviously programmed with a US network, the tourists are more likely to jump on the WiFi because they don’t want to roam,” he says.

Robertson explained that it was “too soon” to implement WiFi 7, the latest generation of WiFi technology, so the company relied on established WiFi 6E to get the job done.

It wasn’t just WiFi, however, with Private 5G also in action at Bethpage Black to plug any coverage gaps.

“Private 5G is doing a couple of things,” Robertson says. “It’s a part of our experiments this time. We’re doing a lot of frequency coordination because we have the cell carriers also doing their networks in the area to cover the event.

“So the private 5G is there, partly as an experiment, but partly to do last-minute coverage gaps. So if someone comes up to us and says, ‘I need a pop-up tent here all of a sudden,’ or ‘I need mobile payment processing here,’ we can get that to them.”

Par for the course

No matter how much planning goes into live events, unexpected challenges are, well, par for the course. This was certainly true for HPE at the Ryder Cup.

“We had to build a robust network that was ready to connect and create the engagement they expected, in an environment that had no base technology, no underground utilities, no existing physical plant,” says Robertson.

Isolated flooding threatened to cause issues prior to the event, although sunshine ultimately prevailed during the three-day tournament.

Although the weather wasn’t an issue, power restrictions could have been a problem, with Robertson pointing out that most of Bethpage Black was reliant on portable generators for power.

“We quickly worked out that we were losing power to key network components around the course during the initial setup and discovered that generators were not always getting filled up before they stopped working,” he explains.

To navigate this, he says HPE worked with the facilities team to create a fuellevel prediction model, which was able to capture IoT data from generators where possible. Using this, HPE could be alerted in advance of a generator running out of fuel.

“This enabled the site facilities team to schedule fill-ups to keep operations working. We never thought of that one, but it’s on our list going forward,” he says.

Even so, Robertson claims that the network stood firm as thousands witnessed the action unfold, right up until the final hole of the final round when the tournament drew to a close on Sunday. “Sitting in the stands on the 18th green during the final round, I was not only watching the golf, but watching the network,” says Robertson.

“My rudimentary speed tests with thousands of people watching the ‘final putt’ that clinched the cup for Europe showed the network was giving me over 100Mbps of uplink and downlink. That was with everyone streaming, posting live. I thought that was impressive.”

Fore-ward thinking

Although this Ryder Cup has only just finished, work is already underway for the next installment of the iconic rivalry, due to take place at Adare Manor, in County Limerick, Ireland, in 2027.

That might still be some nearly 20 months away, but for Robertson and the team, there’s a lot to plan for.

“The Ryder Cup team wants to take the AI analytics further than we were able to do for Bethpage Black, so we are already discussing use cases they want to see and working through what that will be – from how we can further engage with the guest at the event, to how we can automate even more back-of-house needs,” he says.

Given that the next Ryder Cup is in Ireland, there’s a fair chance of rain playing a role, Robertson says, noting that HPE is aware of the potential challenges that come with that.

He also teases that HPE will utilize Juniper’s offering in 2027, with the company’s $14 billion acquisition of Juniper coming too soon for New York 2025. Because of this, expect more AI next year, he says.

“We had to lock this [Ryder Cup 2025] down before the Juniper deal was consummated and closed,” he explains.

“I expect us also to showcase how far the combined HPE Aruba and HPE Juniper portfolios have come since the acquisition, so I expect to deliver even more AI-powered capabilities through an even more advanced AI-powered, self-driving intelligent infrastructure.”

The next Ryder Cup will probably be too soon for AI-powered players, but Europe will be hoping for a repeat of last year’s result in Ireland.