I have always had sympathy for Sir Nick Faldo, Darren Clarke, and Padraig Harrington when it comes to Ryder Cup captaincy.
It fell on them to lead Europe away from home, which has mostly proven to be a fiendishly difficult task. Each captain might look back on what they could have done better, but they weren’t afforded the luxury that Colin Montgomerie, Paul McGinley and Thomas Bjorn were, fortunately, blessed with.
Fumbling the advantage of home comforts is relatively criminal in this event. Hal Sutton will always be a subject of Ryder Cup derision after the USA were blown out of the water in 2004, and Keegan Bradley will be too, after the abject US display in the Big Apple. A historic comeback on Sunday might have spared his blushes.
Luke Donald was afforded the same comforts as Monty, McGinley, and Bjorn two years ago when he was named as captain for the Rome Ryder Cup, after Henrik Stenson was removed for joining LIV Golf.
He embraced the role wholeheartedly, harnessed Europe’s Ryder Cup lineage, connected with the players, and they won convincingly. But we needed to know if this was just another lucky man benefiting from the biennial cycle, or the real deal.
If Donald could make it in New York, he could make it anywhere. What he has done at the 44th and 45th Ryder Cups is finish the etching of his name into the event’s folklore, which was already pending completion.
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The Englishman had an outstanding playing record in his four starts for the continent, and he never lost, which included away victories to Sutton’s anguish in 2004 and Davis Love III in 2012, when Europe completed the miracle of Medinah.
He has franked the form he showed at Marco Simone as captain and proven that the European approach, along with adopting vice captain Edoardo Molinari’s statistical work in devising pairings, has worked.
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For those doubting what effect a captain can actually have at the Ryder Cup while unable to hit any shots, Donald has shown it is more than possible to affect the team’s performance from afar.
He has trounced the cynics who put Ryder Cup victories down to holing more putts and hitting more fairways. There is substance to why it happens for Europe, and it evidently comes from a culture that is absent from the American camp.
Whether it be making short videos of loved ones for each player, designing a team dressing room littered with European imagery and heritage, or going out to the golf course for one-to-one time with team members, each decision has translated into incremental gains and is chalk and cheese with whatever Team USA have been doing for the last 18 months.
A European captain taking three Ryder Cups in a row has plenty of precedent. Bernard Gallacher did it at the start of the 1990s and, despite losing at Kiawah in 1991 and the Belfry in 1993, he eventually got what he wanted in 1995 at Oakland Hills.
Before the Scot was Tony Jacklin, who was captain four times in a row from 1983 to 1989, and oversaw Europe’s first win as a team in 1985, and the first time the USA lost the event since 1957 to the Great Britain team of Lindrick.
| USA | Europe |
| Cameron Young 1 up | Justin Rose |
| Justin Thomas 1 up | Tommy Fleetwood |
| Bryson DeChambeau | Matt Fitzpatrick A/S |
| Scottie Scheffler 1 up | Rory McIlroy |
| Patrick Cantlay | Ludvig Aberg 2&1 |
| Xander Schauffele 4&3 | Jon Rahm |
| J.J. Spaun 2&1 | Sepp Straka |
| Russell Henley | Shane Lowry A/S |
| Ben Griffin 1 up | Rasmus Hojgaard |
| Collin Morikawa | Tyrrell Hatton A/S |
| Sam Burns | Robert MacIntyre A/S |
| Harris English | Viktor Hovland A/S (Envelope rule) |
| 13 | 15 |
Donald must want to do it, though. He has been Ryder Cup captain since the start of August in 2022, and what I am asking is for him to extend his contract until September 2027. It is another big, time-consuming and arduous ask. He treats it as his full-time job, and the pride in his work has produced two of the most memorable European performances of recent times.
He has his wife, Diane and a merry band of daughters. You would assume family, as much as his own desires, will factor into his decision whether to go over the top with Europe once more and charge for Adare Manor in Limerick.
It might also depend on the aspirations of Francesco Molinari or Alex Noren, perhaps, two Euro vice captains who might now be involved in a succession plan. Having said that, the first person our minds might lurch to is Justin Rose.
The 45-year-old is in the age range of a captain and has the popularity and respect, but for anyone who has seen the US Open champion play golf in the last three days, if only for a moment, they will know he is far from done in competitive action.
With my European fez on, it is a no-brainer that Donald remains captain. It is his job and his only until he says otherwise.
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