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What: “Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf”

Where: ESPN, Tuesdays, 6:30-8 p.m.

There was no Ryder Cup over the weekend, the competition between the U.S. and Europe having been suspended for a year because of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Here’s the next best thing.

The first of a series of five new “Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf,” aired by ESPN on consecutive Tuesdays beginning this week, pits Ryder Cup captains Curtis Strange and Sam Torrance against each other in stroke-play competition.

The match was taped at the new and beautiful Carnegie Abbey Club in Portsmouth, R.I., before Sept. 11. The original plan was that the match would follow the Ryder Cup, not serve as some kind of replacement. Either way, it’s a good, well-produced show.

The match got underway with both men playing steadily. Strange birdied the fourth and seventh holes, much to the delight of the gallery. When Torrance hit a great second shot at 10, he wondered why the crowd did not applaud. “Who do you think they are rooting for?” Strange quipped.

As host Jack Whitaker describes it, it was as the Ryder Cup is meant to be played--”a friendly competition.” The highly respected Peter Allis provides on-course commentary for this match. Gary Player is the on-course commentator on some of the matches, including the second one between Sergio Garcia and Phil Mickelson, taped in Los Cabos, Mexico. That match will be shown Oct. 9.

Other matches: Jack Nicklaus vs. Ben Crenshaw, Oct. 16; Shigeki Maruyama vs. Craig Stadler, Oct. 23, and Annika Sorenstam vs. Karrie Webb, Oct. 30.

“Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf” was the first made-for-first television sports series. It made its debut in 1962 and ran for nine years. It was re-introduced in 1994 by Shell and Gaylord Event Television, formerly Jack Nicklaus Productions. Gaylord president Terry Jastrow, a seven-time Emmy Award-winning producer for ABC, is the executive producer of the series.