When a 34-year old Luke Donald and a 23-year old Rory McIlroy were exchanging top spot in the world rankings over the summer of 2012, few would have thought that the Ryder Cup that September would be Donald's last.
Looking to overcome a four point deficit on the final day, it was Donald who was sent out first by European captain José Maria Olazabal and he delivered a win over reigning Masters champion Bubba Watson as the so-called 'Miracle of Medinah' gathered momentum.
"Seize the day" springs to mind - for Donald and for Europe. The Englishman never won again on either the PGA Tour or the DP World Tour and it has been the home team that has relatively comfortably triumphed in each edition of the Ryder Cup since. The smallest margin in the five subsequent contests has been five points and the average is closer to seven.
McIlroy has said more than once in recent times that winning an away Ryder Cup is one of the hardest things to do in golf and that it would be high on his list of accomplishments to help repeat the feat, but one can make a strong case that, under Donald’s astute leadership, it can be achieved even in the likely hostile atmosphere of Bethpage this weekend.
It’s all but impossible to find anyone with anything bad to say about Donald’s captaincy - either in Rome two years ago when he was appointed late, only after Henrik Stenson jumped to the LIV Tour, or any time since he was given the role for a second time, something that hadn’t happened for over 30 years.
"Luke is great, maybe the greatest captain ever," stated Paul McGinley recently in Global Golf Post and Europe’s veteran player this time, Justin Rose, was every bit as glowing in his assessment earlier in the week.
Donald provided the European team with virtual reality headsets to mimic the raucous and possibly abusive New York crowds and while Rose may only have used his for five minutes, he has huge respect for his captain.
"I'm blown away by the work ethic that he's given this captaincy cycle, both of them. He came into it in Rome, maybe six months behind where he would have been otherwise and made up for it amazingly. I think his communication style has been incredibly consistent and on point, and I think he takes all the fuss out of it from a player's point of view.
"Good, clear captaincy sets the tone and paves the way for the players to go ahead and focus on what's important, which is obviously on the golf course from Friday morning. So there's probably a million decisions Luke has had to make to give us (the players) no decisions, and I think that that's ultimately what the job of being a captain is. I give Luke tonnes of credit for how much he's invested in himself."
For sure, Donald outperformed his US counterpart Keegan Bradley at the opening ceremony on Wednesday and not just because Bradley made an unfortunate gaffe when recalling being at the 1999 Ryder Cup in Brookline and mixing up Justin Rose with Justin Leonard.
Of course, at the end of the day, the players have to perform and Europe stacks up well on that front too.
It’s an almost identical team to that which won by five points in Rome in 2023 with the only change being Rasmus Hojgaard for his twin brother Nicolai.
Donald’s captain’s picks may have been influenced by the number crunching that showed that rookies away from home don’t tend to fare particularly well, but nobody made such a compelling case that one could think that Donald has erred or been blindly loyal. If camaraderie and team spirit has anything to do with it, Team Europe is in a good place.
The US side is a little harder to read with four rookies, albeit all four are in the top 20 of the world rankings. Are they all brilliant players? Of course. But they are about to face into something new.
How they will cope with the tension of their opening tee shot or their opening match at a Ryder Cup remains to be seen. Hojgaard is the only European in that boat and he at least experienced it as a buggy driver in 2023!
Of course the home team has the undisputed world number one, Scottie Scheffler, but they had Tiger Woods for years and his record was 13 wins, 21 losses and three halved matches. Even in singles he only took five points out of eight.
The Ryder Cup wasn’t about Woods and it’s not about Scheffler or McIlroy either. It’s about a team - the captain, the vice-captains, the players, the caddies and more.
As Shane Lowry said yesterday referring to the preparations that began straight after the BMW Championship 12 days ago: "The last two weeks, I've never laughed so much in my whole life. We've just had a great time. We've enjoyed getting ready together, preparing together but obviously that's no good to anyone if I don't play well and win points. There's no point in it being good fun if you don't perform. So yeah, I'm here to do both".
From Donald down, Europe really seem to have everything sorted and have every to chance to buck the trend and win away from home, something that a US team hasn’t done for over 30 years. Seize the day.
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