REACTION! In-depth analysis of Luke Donald’s Ryder Cup Team Europe

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Europe’s six automatic qualifiers were confirmed as Rory McIlroy, Robert MacIntyre, Tommy Fleetwood, Justin Rose, Rasmus Hojgaard and Tyrrell Hatton all secured their places in Team Europe’s line-up. Shane Lowry, Sepp Straka, Ludvig Åberg, Viktor Hovland and Matt Fitzpatrick were the next five in the Ryder Cup qualification standings. Two-time major champion Jon Rahm also returns.

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Thank you for joining us. Sky Sports Golf and Golf Channel with us to further extend our chat with Captain Luke Donald. Uh we’ve got the 12 players now. Luke, let’s have another little look at them. Remind ourselves. It must feel good when you get to this point of the whole process because I’d imagine a huge job and and a big thing on your shoulders finding the extra guys that don’t automatically qualify. Is there a sense of relief around the process as well as you get towards this the finish line? Yeah, the last two weeks are I think the toughest part of a captain’s job. Um, you know, those people who are jocking for position, the people that feel like they might have done enough and and get the calls that they’re not on the team. That’s that’s a tough thing for a captain. I’ve been through it as a captain before and I’ve been through it as a player. I have a lot of empathy towards those guys, but I do feel like we have an amazing strong team. Um, it just so happens that there’s so much continuity from Rome. I think there’s a lot of positives from that. Uh but as I said, it’s a different challenge. Um we know winning away in Ryder Cups is is not easy, but uh certainly the last 20 months have been dedicated to to trying to figure that puzzle out. Yeah, I I think to your point there as well, viewers watching around the world would have seen obviously Matt Wallace’s reaction in his interview yesterday. The tears flowed from what it meant to miss out on this occasion. Um but again, only further adds to what it means to be on a European side for a Ryder Cup. Let’s look a little bit into the detail. We’ll touch on experience in a minute. Let’s talk form because we know that’s always something that we hear a lot about. Um form, end of the PGA Tour season, FedEx Cup playoffs, the three events, 2-1 by European players. How satisfying was it to see the form as two stalwarts as well and Justin Rose here in Memphis and followed by Tommy Fleetwood at the FedEx Cup. Yeah, Justin obviously pipping Tommy to the line there and and a few other guys, JJ Spornne and Scotty who will be on the US team. But yeah, I think um what impresses me most about Justin is his ability to rise to the occasion uh when he’s when it’s needed. Um just incredible that, you know, at 45 years of age, he’s able to elevate his game like he is. Um it’s just time and time again, he’s so meticulous with his preparation. And then obviously it’s it’s quite nice, isn’t it, to have the FedEx Cup champion? Yes. Um in uh in your team. We Everyone loves Tommy. He’s a crowd favorite. um how he dealt with some of the adversity that he showed where he didn’t quite get over the line, but he knew he just needed to keep putting him in those positions again and again and uh he was able to get it over the line in probably the most important tournament of his career. Incredible to hoist that trophy at just the right time certainly for you as the European captain. Let’s show you exactly as well how it works out in terms of experience because we hear that talked about a lot is that especially when you’re away from home, Luke, and you obviously have this experience. She won twice away from home as a player. Um there is a gulf of it between the European side and the United States, double the amount of appearances in terms of matches played and just one rookie in the European side. How valuable is that? I think if you go back in the the history of our Ry Cups when playing away, experience does count for a little bit more for sure. Um statistically um and just being used to that environment. It’s uh New York. It’s going to be it’s going to be loud. It’s going to be tough. Um, but I’ve obviously been thinking about this for 20 months and getting these guys ready for that. And I think um, you know, the experience from a lot of the players who have played away um, and you know that is so so so vital when it comes to um, you know, the Ryder Cup and especially playing at Beth Page. Last time there was only one rookie in the team was Mad. I’m not trying to put things together here for you, but there you know it was a good one for the European side. you talk a little bit more in detail about that for us because that’s interesting. Many might think perhaps you lean on the fact that you’ve been here before the last time how good we were as a European side, the way we did this, the way we did that. Get the feeling that you’re actually trying to or you’re telling us that this is a completely different animal. How different is the preparation for this and away one versus what you did for Rome? As I said, I’m I’m very aware that um three of the last four away winning RDER Cups were were losing for us, losing sides. And you know, the US won quite handily. We obviously won in Madina with a great comeback on Sunday, but uh you know, I’ve been given the task to try and figure that puzzle out. You know, what what uh what didn’t we do well um when when we lost away. Uh so that has been a big part of my preparation. It’s been very different to what some of the thought processes that went into the captaincy for Rome. Um, obviously a lot of things worked well in Rome and we’ll we’ll roll some of those out, but this is a different challenge and it requires different strategies because of that. When you look at these players here that I mean they are 12 lines, really strong players with great stories and they are 12man team. There is one that stands out though and it doesn’t matter if it’s a European side or the world of golf and it’s Rory Maroy and he did that even more so this year by by obviously completing the career at Grand Slam. How valuable is that to have on your side just the sixth player in the history of the sport to do that? Yeah, I talked about John setting the standard. This guy sets the standard as well um to be only the sixth guy ever to win a career grand slam. You know, he understands the history of the game too. Uh we’ve seen the raw emotion from Rory when it comes to Ryder Cups, what it means, the the tears at Whistling Straits, the joy and elation in in Rome. Um he really understands that winning away is tough and it’s a big big goal of his and when he sets his mind to something that he really wants to achieve, um you know, Rory is going to be all in. Tell us a little bit as well because we’ve heard one of the things that Rory does is he expects the other players to be alongside to look alongside him rather than up to him in terms of the difference perhaps in what they’ve achieved in their career. What’s been your experience of Rory Mroy in that team environment in terms of being that leader? Yeah, every team has big big egos, big uh personalities, but uh I think uh what we did so well in Rome was, you know, we kind of left those personalities and those egos kind of at the door. Um we we had assembled all of our great talents and tried to create a team that didn’t have a lot of hierarchy. You know Roryo is great at that. He want doesn’t want to be looked up at. He wants to look side by side with these guys. He wants to share his knowledge. He is a very much a team person first. And again I think um you know having people with that character um is is really really special. Yeah. And we we joked a little earlier on about the fact that it’s actually all the same surnames on on the team sheet this time around. Obviously, there’s a difference in which Hoyard we’re going to see that his brother wasn’t too far away. I can imagine. I can imagine. And all part of that difficult conversation for you um with the players who’ve come so close when you look along the players here though. Is there an element of is it stacked up in terms of there’s leaders, there’s roles for every single player in in that team? Is that how you build it out as you go to towards the actual event? Yeah, we understand we’re always a little bit more stronger as a collective. So, we support each other, but I think everyone feels like they have different roles and uh they want to play those roles to the best of their ability. Um, you know, again, everyone sees the RDER Cup uh in in a in a different way, but in a same way as well. We create a very strong culture within the RDER Cup. We understand the history, what it means. we understand our place within the game of golf and the fact that we have an opportunity not only to kind of set a standard for this away Ryder Cup but future Ryder Cups as well. When you look at it, I think we’re used to back in the day perhaps Ryder Cups were a little bit different in terms of there is an element of we heard the odd captain certainly from the US side in the past who said I could put anyone with anyone and I’d expect them to win in this side because we got the 12 best golfers in the world. It feels like it’s done very differently now in terms of the amount of data, the way you put it all together. just give us and I don’t expect just to give us the trade secrets but give us a glimpse into how much goes into compiling these players and knowing how to arrange them so you can get the very best out of them. Yeah, a lot goes into it. Obviously Eduardo um you know um my one of my vice captains is is a amazing part of that. We we spend a lot of time together crunching numbers, but going over all kinds of different things. How they how they match up personalitywise, how they match up to the course, whether they’re more suited to foroms, four balls, you know, and uh we look at the golf balls, we look at uh so many different variables, and then we try and put the the pieces of the puzzle together. Um it’s um a little bit more work than probably most people think, but uh it’s absolutely worth it if you can get the result. And in terms of the communication with the players along that do do they get an insight into all of the all of this thinking as it goes along? Look, one of the changes that I wanted to make uh for this captaincy was uh changing in the communication. I really wanted to up that and change the way that we um communicate with the players as a whole. So, not just the players here, but players that might be future Ryder Cup players.