Golf: Interview: Terry Matthews: Ryder Cup to the Manor born

A rich man's epic playground could become a magnet for the world's golfing gladiators. By Tim Glover

Terry Matthews was waxing lyrical by the 13th tee on the Roman Road course, in front of the hotel which dominates the skyline, when a golfer about to play a shot told him to be quiet. Nobody interrupts Terry Matthews, let alone tells him to shut up.

In this year's rich list Matthews, an electronics whizz kid, was 18th with pounds 960m. He says he doesn't like talking about himself but that the sum was on the conservative side. Given that he receives about pounds 8m a month in interest, any figure is likely to be obsolete. Whatever, he is Wales's first billionaire and then some and is ploughing pounds 100m into converting mountainous farmland off the M4 near Newport into Celtic Manor, one of the most extensive resorts in Europe, if not the planet. "It's going to be a magnet for golf," said the magnate. "There are great courses around but you can't get to them. We are only one and a half hours from Heathrow."

The site was once a fortress for the Roman second legion and artefacts are still being unearthed; in a few thousand years' time archaeologists may find the Matthews settlement equally fascinating. The scale is epic, the investment matched only by the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff which will host the rugby World Cup next year.

Matthews wants to stage the Ryder Cup, the biennial match between Europe and the US. "People want to play where the Ryder Cup is played," he said. "I have sufficient personal wealth to fund it and I will."

Matthews, who joined British Telecom at 16, co-founded the Mitel Corporation in 1972. He sold it to BT in 1985, netting pounds 10m and established Newbridge Networks Corporation with pounds 1.5m. Today it is worth about pounds 3.6bn. He has also built 30 more hi-tech companies.

Celtic Manor is another story. Matthews - his father, Albert, worked in a nylon factory in Pontypool - was born in the old manor house, then a nursing home, 54 years ago. The next time he saw the manor, it was boarded up, so he bought it, that and a surrounding 1,400 acres at pounds 4,000 an acre. In 1980 he met the golf-course architect Robert Trent Jones in Fort Lauderdale. "I told him his name sounded Welsh and he said it certainly was. He was born in Aberystwyth."

Not, perhaps, quite on a par with Stanley meeting Dr Livingstone but Trent Jones Senior and Dr Matthews have become a formidable team. Despite the fact that on his first visit to South Wales, Trent Jones had to be rescued from a sea of mud, he was "thrilled to bits" with the land. His first creation, which opened in 1995, was the Roman Road course (7,000 yards, par 69). It overlooks the Severn estuary with views of Somerset and Devon. A fortune has been spent on undersoil drainage. Next came Coldra Woods (4,000 yards par 59), one of the more interesting short courses this side of Augusta National's par-three layout, although Augusta doesn't have the remains of a gladiators' training camp.

Now the piece de resistance, Wentwood Hills (7,450 yards par 72). It will be opened in the summer by Mark James, Europe's Ryder Cup captain, and Ian Woosnam, who represents Celtic Manor on tour.

Wentwood Hills, built alongside the River Usk, has been designed by Robert Trent Jones Junior (his father, the one who got stuck in the mud, is 92) and his brief was to produce a course that could accommodate a major event. Whatever Junior wanted he got, including an amphitheatre for spectators. It will stage the European Amateur Championships next August and the PGA Cup between club professionals of GB and Ireland and the US in 2000. Matthews wants the Ryder Cup in 2009. "It's never been held in Wales," he said, "and I want a crack at it." With the match televised throughout the world, so does virtually everybody else. It is only held in Europe every four years. Jaime Patino took it to Valderrama in 1997; the Americans host it in Boston next year; it returns to The Belfry in 2001 and it will go to Ireland, for the first time, in 2005. The smart money (and this is all about smart money) is on the Arnold Palmer-designed, Michael Smurfit- owned K Club in Co Kildare.

Thus 2009 is the earliest Matthews can hope to get the Ryder Cup. "It would put us on the map," he said. "Golf never pays for itself. It's an investment. This isn't a sensitive thing because I was born in the old manor house. I'm about as sensitive as a brick." The brick he is using to build a 400-room hotel, the biggest in Wales (it will be opened by the Prince of Wales in the new year), is similar to the Parliament building in Ottawa, where Matthews has his headquarters. On a holiday to Canada he liked the country so much he almost bought it. He enjoys skiing but has no time for golf. He's only played 10 times and has never seen the Ryder Cup. "I play a rotten round of golf, but I build good golf courses."

He works from 7.30am to 9pm six days a week. Like most abnormal people he doesn't seem to sleep or eat. "Take a spoonful of concrete with your cereal," is his advice. He is building a leisure industry but has no time for leisure. "All my friends play golf. The most senior people in industry play golf. It attracts the right class of people. Rugby's the same. I'm not class-conscious, I just appreciate people who are professional, who are decent human beings."

He would like to have been at Wembley for the Wales-South Africa match, but, you know what it's like when you're an electronics giant. He saw some of it on television. "The last five minutes were depressing," Matthews said. So he's going to do something about Welsh rugby as well. With the WRU he's going to build a centre of excellence at Celtic Manor which will include six pitches and another hotel. "Wales can't do well in the long term without a good root system. The academy will bring on young players and improve the stock so I feel pretty good about that."

The Welsh Golf Union is already at Celtic Manor and it seems likely that the WRU, obliged to utilise every spare inch of the Millennium Stadium, will also move to the resort. And that's not all. A fourth course, Bulmore Ridge, near Caerleon (the heart of Isca, the Roman encampment) will be designed by another of the Trent Jones' dynasty, Rees Jones. Beyond Celtic Manor is 22,000 acres of public woodland (called Wentwood Hills) parts of which Matthews also intends to exploit. He sees mountain bike riding, equestrianism, big-time tennis. There would probably be dragon hunting if it was allowed.

"Some people have described him as an ecological vandal," Jim McKenzie, the estate's manager, said, "but our policy is to save trees and encourage wildlife. We even offered to put the electricity pylons beneath ground. Birds that used to nest at Cardiff Bay are coming here." Given the chance, Matthews would charge them a green fee. McKenzie was formerly head green keeper at Wentworth. "People asked why on earth did I move. The reason is Celtic Manor has a lot more potential."

Matthews's conversation is punctuated with the phrase "I feel pretty good about that". It changed when he saw an item in an American magazine with a montage of an orchestra of hi-tech maestros. "I was playing second fiddle behind Bill Gates and I was very upset about that."

Matthews networks the globe in his Falcon 50 jet; he drives a turbo Bentley and has a boat named after his Auntie Ivy "because she's a big mother". He wanted his hotel to be so big people could see it from London. "It's a foundation stone. I'm going to grow the Hill into something special. I've been at this project for 17 years, and I'm going to keep at it." He sounds like a Roman legion.

Back at the 13th on the Roman Road, the admonishment from the unsuspecting golfer is timely, for Matthews is making a clumsy attempt at currying favour: write nice things about us and it will not go unnoticed, nudge- nudge, wink-wink. I didn't feel very good about that. It wasn't necessary. Celtic Manor will speak for itself.