The devil is in the details: How the smallest captain decisions can make the biggest difference at the Ryder Cup
By Don Riddell, CNN
Farmingdale, New York (CNN) — Don’t sweat the small stuff, they say, but in the Ryder Cup it’s the smallest things that could make the biggest difference.
The biennial golf competition between Europe and the United States has grown into one of the most high-pressured events in all of sport, and successful team captains have learned that to be competitive, everything counts.
From the clothing to the team room decor, the strategy and the speeches, no detail is overlooked.
In 2010, Europe’s captain Colin Montgomerie decided that the five-foot beds in the Celtic Manor hotel weren’t big enough, so he ordered replacements that were 12 inches wider. In 2014, Paul McGinley decked out the players’ team room in European colors, right down to the baize on the pool table and the blue-and-gold fish in the aquarium.
It’s not just to make the players feel comfortable, it’s to convey to them that their leader has thought of everything, so that all they have to worry about is playing golf.
Clothing is important. At Bethpage on Monday, Europe’s captain Luke Donald sent his players out in a salmon pink palette, a reminder of one of their most famous away wins at Muirfield Village in Ohio.
“We always have things that we come up with that are important to us,” he told the media. “We haven’t come close to winning three of the last four away Ryder Cups, but we have won four times away since 1987. I think it’s motivating to the guys that it can be done, it has been done, and we’re here to try and do it again.”
And clothing isn’t just for show, it needs to be functional. The American team could certainly have done without the aggravation of running to the pro shop to buy alternative waterproofs in 2010 because they were getting soaked in their official gear.
Successful Ryder Cup captains have learned from their predecessors when they were playing, but they’ve also reached out to leaders in other sports and even the corporate world. Europe’s 2023 and 2025 captain, Luke Donald, told CNN that he has spent time with the England cricket captain Ben Stokes. Manchester United’s legendary football manager Sir Alex Ferguson also gave the European team one of its most inspirational speeches in 2014.
Knowing the squad
Captains have almost two years to prepare for just three days of intense competition. A wise use of that long preparation time would be to connect with the players and to understand their personality types. Are they extroverted or introverted? Who would they perform well with in a pairing? How should the captain’s communication style be tailored to the individual, and will they respond better to a hug or a fiery speech when the going gets tough?
Standing back and hoping for the best is not a winning strategy in the Ryder Cup, even if you think your team has the better players.
In 2014, the American team disintegrated under Tom Watson’s leadership at Gleneagles in Scotland. Watson was accused of being aloof and out of touch and the team’s management was publicly roasted by a furious Phil Mickelson in the Sunday night press conference.
While six players qualified automatically for the teams heading to Bethpage this year, the number has varied over time, leaving the captains with another six players to choose at their own discretion. Simply picking the next best players in the rankings isn’t always a wise strategy.
That was the American approach in 2018, even though the players chosen were notoriously wide off the tee, an unsuitable style for a famously narrow Paris course. As McGinley would later put it: “You have to prepare for the exam.”
Golf fans are traditionally genteel and polite, but all bets are off at the Ryder Cup where the intensity of the occasion fosters boisterous support for the home team and sometimes boorish treatment of the visitors.
It’s all part of the game, but Europe’s 2004 captain Bernhard Langer pulled off a masterstroke at Oakland Hills, instructing his players to interact with and sign as many autographs as possible for the American fans. In contrast, the US players were less accessible and by the time the competition started, many fans were rooting for the away team. Europe romped to a nine-point thrashing.
Europe’s last Ryder Cup captain in the States was Padraig Harrington and he agrees that the crowd is a key factor.
The three-time major winner explained that ahead of the 2025 Ryder Cup, Team Europe is taking no chances and has paid close attention to what could be a rowdy Bethpage crowd.
“I know they have practiced with hecklers,” Harrington told CNN Sport. “That’s what I’d be doing. I’d be preparing myself that it’s only name-calling, they’re not coming over the ropes and I would have as much noise and as much heckling going on as they could in preparation.
“I’m sure they have with the VR and stuff like that, that they’re using just to desensitize.”
With the crowd an important factor, Harrington said a quick start could prove vital this weekend.
“If Europe could get off to a good start, those fans could turn on the Americans. The New York crowd turn on their own teams when they don’t perform,” Harrington said.
Finding the right combinations
Arguably the biggest challenge in any Ryder Cup is figuring out how to help players of an individual sport work together as a team, so selecting the pairings is crucial. More than half of the 28 points available are decided in the foursomes and fourballs and the captains must responsibly assess chemistry and compatibility.
Sometimes players gel over a common interest – for example, Darren Clarke and Miguel Ángel Jiménez were matched because of their mutual love of wine and cigars – or a captain might want to send an inexperienced player out with a veteran who can shoulder more of the responsibility in the heat of battle.
Conversely, a bad pairing can be disastrous. The 2004 American captain Hal Sutton thought that sending out Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, the best two players on the course, would be a guaranteed two points. Their egos clashed and they went down in flames, losing both matches and returning to the clubhouse in silence.
By the time the US team next hosted the tournament in 2008, captain Paul Azinger used a “pod” system, profiling his players’ personality traits and splitting them into groups of four to practice and dine together. His pairings came from those pods and his team won comfortably, but subsequent American captains discontinued the practice.
Harrington recounts from his playing days that picking the right partnerships can make or break a Ryder Cup weekend.
“Myself and Luke Donald played in 2010 and we were a terrible partnership,” Harrington explained. “There was neither a leader between us, or there were too many captains.”
The four-time Ryder Cup winning player remembers his “dream partnership” with rookie Ross Fisher much more fondly.
“Ross Fisher thought the world of me and anything I said he thought was gospel and did it – and he just played unbelievable golf.
“That’s a perfect example of a senior player and a rookie playing well together, because the rookie just believes in you … You take control of the match, you make all the decisions, and he just plays great.”
Harrington said that having an automatic leader in a pairing is just one of the many factors that captains consider.
“A captain and his vice captains have to look at the dynamic between players – who will play well together, who will work well with each other, who respects the other.”
In fourballs, the players all play their own ball, and the best score wins the hole. In foursomes, they share the ball and play alternate shots. Europe’s 2014 captain McGinley figured out that the Gleneagles course in Scotland had three par fives on even numbered holes, with a drivable par four, also an even number. So, he partnered big hitting players with short game experts in the foursomes, knowing that his pairings would be setup to dominate those holes.
If a home captain feels as though they are stronger in one particular format, they’d be wise to lead with that on Friday morning, to build some momentum and get their colors on the scoreboard. Confidence can be contagious. Equally, captains know that they are unlikely to win all five of the sessions. The good ones have learned to remain calm and unflappable, minding their body language both in front of their players and the media.
On Monday, the captains Keegan Bradley and Donald sat side by side in a news conference, discussing the impact their leadership might have.
“I really do hope the captain has a little bit of an influence,” said Donald, “Keegan understands the preparation that goes into being a captain, looking at all the little details about how you can try and find little edges and get the guys prepared.”
Bradley concurred. “The captains and the vice-captains, their main job is to put the players in the best position to play at their best,” he said. “We want to make sure the guys are in the right state of mind.”
Ryder Cup captains really do need to think of, and be prepared for, everything; it’s the ultimate test of leadership and man-management skills. Failing to prepare means preparing to fail, but successful captains will even have a losing speech written in advance – just in case. Montgomerie, McGinley and Thomas Bjorn have all admitted that they tucked some pre-prepared remarks into their luggage.
It’s testament to their holistic attention to detail that they never needed to use them.
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CNN’s Thomas Schlachter contributed to this report.
