How To Win The Ryder Cup: Ian Woosnam
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2006 at the K Club, Europe 18 ½ USA 9 ½
I was always going to be a motivational captain, minus the speeches. For me, it was all about getting my assistants right, then the pairings, then making sure everyone was ready to play their best. They can only do that when they are comfortable and happy, which is why I made sure that everything was about them, not me.
I am a great believer in getting everyone’s input on the big decisions. Not that I always listened. We spent a lot of time on the set-up of the golf course. I even took a few guys over to Ireland in advance of the matches. That led to some changes. We cut the rough back, away from the greens, to bring the chipand-run into play. I thought our team would be better at those than the Americans. And we put in a couple of bunkers and some trees. They had some long hitters in their squad and I wanted to take away that advantage as much as possible.
The course was playing long. So I made sure to get my longer hitters out there early in the fourballs. In the foursomes, I wanted guys who were going to hit fairways. Playing from the rough was never going to work. On the first morning, I left out three of the top 12 players in the world. They weren’t too happy. When I explained they’d all be playing in the afternoon, they relaxed.
Getting the right assistants is important too. I had some of my closest friends standing beside me in DJ Russell, Peter Baker and Des Smyth. I could rely on them to tell me what I needed to know, not what I wanted to hear. I got the unvarnished truth from them all. Everyone was happy from start to finish, especially with the result.
