A united Europe, a divided America
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When Ryder Cup hero Jamie Donaldson rode laughing into the interview room on the back of Thomas Bjorn, neighing and whipping the beaming Dane as Paul McGinley and the team bounced in behind, it summed up the week at Gleneagles.
The European team have been been together since day one, fully focused on the task ahead, clearly comfortable with the pressure of being favourites, while all the time following McGinley’s message to “have fun”. That strategy saw Europe’s 12 men secure a comfortable 16.5-11.5 victory in front of tens of thousands of fans over Gleneagles’ PGA Centenary Course.
“We had an inspirational captain this week,” smiled Donaldson. “And we all came together as a team to play well enough to win The Ryder Cup, which was the main thing.”
Rory McIlroy, who pushed for McGinley to be the 2014 captain said he “couldn’t speak highly enough” of McGinley. “He has just been the most wonderful captain,” said the four-time Major champion. “From the first day we got here, the speeches that he gave, the videos he showed us, the people that he got in to talk us, the imagery in the team room, it all tied in together; all part of the plan all for the cause of trying to win this Ryder Cup, and he was meticulous in his planning. He left no stone unturned.”
Sergio Garcia said McGinley “thought of everything this week” and said Thomas Bjorn had feels strongly that the Irishman is the “new wave of captains”, a sentiment echoed by Lee Westwood.
“I think Paul got a great template and a model for captains going forward,” said the Englishman. “ I think you could base your captaincy and your future captain around the way Paul did it this week.”
If only Tom Watson had adopted the same philosophy, he would’ve avoided being victim to a scathing attack from Phil Mickelson in the US team’s post-match press conference.
The five-time Major winner, surprisingly dropped by Watson from all of Saturday’s action, talked at length about Paul Azinger’s methods in captaining the US to success in 2008.
“He got everybody invested in the process,” Mickelson explained. “He got everybody invested in who they were going to play with, who the picks were going to be, who was going to be in their pod, when they would play, and they had a great leader for each pod. We were invested in the process.”
It seemed rather ironic that Mickelson was creating a stir among his own team just a few days after questioning the harmony among the Europeans in light of Rory McIlroy and Graeme McDowell’s legal battle. Mickelson continued by suggesting that in 2008 the US “had a real game plan” and expressed his surprise that the successful process used in the US’ team’s regular Presidents Cup victories isn’t transferred into The Ryder Cup.
Watson put Mickelson’s comments down to “a difference of opinion” before defending his own tactics. “I had a different philosophy than Paul. I didn’t discount it; I just had a different philosophy right off the bat. My two jobs are to make the captain’s picks and then put the team together, those are my most important jobs. “The bottom line is the Europeans were better than us. They kicked our butts.”
In a thinly-veiled dig at Mickelson, who’d complained of feeling exhausted after playing two sessions on Friday, Watson also admitted he’d like to see a change in the Ryder Cup format so everyone plays every session. “Then everybody knows they are going to go 36 holes and then everybody knows that they have to be in shape to play,” Watson smiled.
While the fallout between two of golf’s greatest ever players will make headlines, it won’t take the attention away from Europe’s 10th win in 12 meetings.
Rory McIlroy’s dominant singles victory over Rickie Fowler set the tone for the day and the Northern Irishman admitted he’d felt more pumped up going into Sunday than he had going into the final round of either of his 2014 Major victories. Europe’s success saw McIlroy become the first player since 1977 to win two Majors and a Ryder Cup in the same year. “He’s had more champagne this year than the rest of us combined,” Justin Rose joked. “All this winning isn’t good for my health,” replied McIlroy.
And the Northern Irishman was keen to state that Europe’s recent dominance of the event wouldn’t damage its future or cause the players to lose interest, with Europe’s goal to overtake the US’ overall record as soon as possible.
“If you look at the Honours Board of The Ryder Cup, America have still won a lot more than Europe,” McIlroy said. “That’s what we’re going towards. I don’t think this diminishes the competitive aspect of The Ryder Cup at all, because you know, even though we’ve won the majority of the recent events, they have still been very competitive.”
Thomas Bjorn was also quick to talk about the positive impact another European success would have on the European Tour.
“We are going through a transition of a lot of things within the Tour changing, and to stand up as a tour and have these players representing the Tour this week, Paul said it all week, it’s shown how far we’ve come,” said the Dane. “You know, to go in as favourites and win it is a special thing, and it’s something that goes through the whole Tour. We are extremely proud of our players. I’m with George (O’Grady) standing at the closing ceremony and I said, ‘If you can’t sell this, you’ve got problems!’”
McGinley admitted his delight that his captaincy had led to another victory and that the players had enjoyed the week, but said nothing would ever beat playing in the event.
“I’ve enjoyed being captain and it’s been a real honour and a real privilege and a lot of these guys at this table pushed me over the line to be the captain and it was a real honour to represent them and do a job for us and for them that was going win the trophy,” smiled the Irishman. “Still nothing beats playing. There’s nothing like the adrenaline of walking to that first tee with the home support bellowing, bellowing at you. It’s a great thrill, and I wanted the players to enjoy that and drink it in and enjoy every moment of it, because your career goes very fast. It’s been fantastic, but there’s nothing beats playing what these 12 guys have just enjoyed today.”
And in the wake of wide praise of his captaincy-style, McGinley was quick to reject suggestions that he could stay in the role or go back to being a vice-captain.
“I’m very happy, The Ryder Cup has been very good to me and I’m quite happy now to take very much a background role. I’ve done my piece and I’m happy to have the honour and happy to help in any way going forward but I don’t think a it would be right for me to go into the vice captaincy role. I don’t know if I’d quite enjoy that, having done it, and then stepped up to captaincy. I’m very happy to help the captain in any other way. On the European side, obviously.”
Darren Clarke is the early favourite to succeed McGinley for the 2016 clash at Hazeltine, Minnesota. One thing for sure, he’ll have some big shoes to fill.
