How To Win In America: Bernhard Langer

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It has been suggested that because I played in America regularly and have an American wife that I was an obvious captain away from home. But it wasn’t just that, there’s a lot to consider when you’re captain. I know the American mentality, and I know the people, but it’s a very small part – you don’t have to live in the United States to be a good captain, put it that way. It may help you a little, but that’s a small part of it.

Choosing wild cards is never easy. But I have known Monty for many years, know what he’s capable of and what a great champion he is. Also how intense and dedicated he is towards the Ryder Cup. I just had a feeling that the course would suit him and secondly, he would rise to the occasion. He’s also a great team player and he doesn’t put himself before the team. Experience also always helps, especially in Ryder Cups, because it’s such a different event compared to any others. Experience is definitely a positive and I would pick an experienced guy over a rookie, if everything else was equal, nine out of 10 times.

We decided in the team room to go out of our way to treat the fans nicely. Thomas Levet is a clown anyway – and I mean that in a nice way, he’s a wonderful guy, I love the guy – and he had especially great interaction with the crowd. We took time to sign autographs even though this adds another hour or two to your practice round; it makes for a long day but we all felt this was important. We wanted them to see the better side of us, that we were good humans, that we love the game and it certainly paid off in the long run.

I think it’s always a good thing to do, not just in Ryder Cups. It’s good to treat your fans properly. Obviously the majority of fans are there to see America win but they still want to see good golf and see Europe’s stars. And when you think about someone who does that very well, it’s Phil Mickelson. He has a wonderful reputation in America, everyone loves him, he’s the darling of the nation. And what does he do? He spends time with the people. Arnold Palmer did the same thing. Why was he such a huge name? Not just because he was a great golfer, but because he shook everyone’s hand, looked them in the eye, had a picture taken, signed an autograph, and gave them a few seconds of his time.

Everybody has their own practice routine and I gave them the freedom to do as much or as little as they felt. I did, though, make a point of saying you should practise nine holes of fourballs and nine holes of foursomes. I said if you play 18 holes, don’t just play a normal 18 holes – apart from maybe the first time to look at the course. After that I paired them together the way they were going to play under real, competitive circumstances so they could already get a glimpse of how they were going to do it and to get to know each other even better.

I was very surprised about the Tiger-Phil pairing because I knew those two don’t get along all that great, or they didn’t at the time. I don’t know about now but I could see what Hal Sutton was trying to achieve by getting the crowd behind them, putting the No.1 and No.2 in the world out together, that they were unbeatable and get all the hype going but it backfired on them. Getting the pairings correct is a big part of being captain and getting the chemistry right is huge. It’s just huge. You need someone on your side who you feel comfortable with, that you can talk to, pull for and help each other – especially when things aren’t going so well.

But even when things are going well you need to stay somewhat relaxed, have some conversation and if you play with someone you have nothing in common with, you’re not going to do that. On the first morning, it’s difficult to leave a third of your team out and still keep them happy. I was trying to instil in them they’re the best players in the world and should be proud of making the team and have fun, but then they would think “if I’m the best, why am I not playing?” I know that’s what they were thinking, even if they weren’t saying it, so you’ve got to keep them happy and explainwhy, explain they will play and that you will rely on them; it’s a team effort, not an individual thing, so I think communication was vital to keeping everyone happy. I went out of my way to talk to everyone and to make sure they understood why I was playing certain guys and why some had to sit out. I explained it’s not because they were any worse than the other players, it just means I can only pick eight. I think that’s one of the keys – you can’t just sit someone out and let him guess why, because he’s going to guess wrong – that he’s not good enough. That’s not the case.

 

A lot is talked about momentum and you definitely don’t want to get in the hole of  being way behind. Our goal was to stay with them at first, to be as level as possible and maybe get ahead. We did that every single time. We won every piece of the puzzle. And it gave us confidence – I told them every time we won another session “Hey, you beat them again; you beat them in fourballs and now we beat them in foursomes. We’re better and we’re going to beat them again. Let’s beat them again”. Everyone takes it differently, but I imagine it helped – it would have helped my confidence and if it helps me, I’m sure it would have helped them.

I prayed a lot about our singles line-up and spent a lot of time talking to my vice-captains. We felt we wanted some momentum; we put some strong guys out early but you know the great thing was a lot of guys were in top form and that always helps. We had four or five of the players winning just a few weeks before the Ryder Cup so they were confident, felt they were playing well and all the success we had on Friday and Saturday only fuelled the fire. Then some guys saw who they were playing and they were like “Oh, I’m playing him, oh that’s just who I wanted” which fired them up even more.

I wasn’t as involved as to tell the players what club to hit but I did have someone on the par 3s – either myself or one of the vice-captains and I did relay the message “Oh, Garcia just hit 5-iron and it pitched here and went that far” because these guys play with each other all year so they know how far each of them hits the ball and if they’re between a 4 or 5-iron, it may just give them confidence to say “If he hit 5-iron, that’s the right club for me”. There was also one hole when a water hazard came into play and it was over a hill – a couple of guys hit it into the ditch so I made sure everyone on our team on that tee knew that the shot wasn’t a driver, it was a 3-wood because the ball runs and runs. Little things like that. Or there was a certain pin position where it was vital to be left side rather than right side we made sure someone was there to relay that before the shot was played.

It looks like I’ll be at Medinah this year, and I’m looking forward to it. It should be a great match. Both teams are shaping up pretty strong but for me, the favourites are the Europeans. They’re going to have a strong team for a number of years, because we have a lot of great talent and that’s great to see. I don’t look much at the rankings because rankings can change on a weekly or monthly basis. I just look at the quality of player, and how they’ve played the last few months. You want guys who have a bit of confidence, not someone who was good eight months ago, and is now in a slump.

Because the Ryder Cup is no place to find form; I have never felt more pressure than I did over that putt at Kiawah Island. That’s a giveaway. We have lots of putts and shots where there is tremendous pressure but this one was far more than any other shot or putt I ever had in my life because it was all on the line, the very last putt and we knew exactly what the outcome would be. It was a very unique situation. I don’t think about it because it was 21 years ago, but I do get asked a lot about it. It’s just part of my life.

“BERNHARD WAS PHENOMENAL. HE MADE THE PLAYERS RELAX” – 2004 vice-captain Anders Forsbrand

The atmosphere was absolutely phenomenal and to see a team work so well together was really cool. Monty was incredible and Westwood and Garcia a great pairing. From tee to green, there are not many better than Garcia.
Bernhard was a phenomenal captain. He took the pressure off. It seemed like he made the players much more relaxed than I thought they’d be. Everything he did was really impressive. He did some really cool things like getting the players to sign as many autographs as possible. That really helped.

When we played Oakland Hills we could see it was set up for good drivers – so that was one of the things we looked at with the picks. Experience is good but you need to be playing well. Even if you’re 15th or 20th on the qualifying list you’ve got enough experience to play good golf and the Ryder Cup will just be another different experience.

They are 12 individuals but they do gel much more when they come together. The guys who rise are much more able to become great team members than guys who aren’t able to step outside being an individual.

It was absolutely wonderful to see how hard some of the guys worked for each other. To be able to get them to do that, that’s the hardest part. Some are much better than others.

 

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