Heading into the Ryder Cup later this month, the European team will be looking to reverse what has been a long running trend in the competition over the last couple of decades.
Since the turn of the century, there have only been two editions of the event where a team has won on away soil. Those came in 2004 and 2012, when Europe won in the USA.
It has been suggested that winning an away Ryder Cup has become an even more difficult task in recent times. The last few tournaments have not been all that close, with 2012 the last occasion that it came down to the wire on the final day.
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Paul McGinley Reveals Two Changes Europe Made Before 2025 Ryder Cup
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Having been dominant in Rome two years ago, Europe will be hoping to retain the trophy at Bethpage later this month.
The team will be incredibly similar to the 2023 side, with 11 of the same players taking part. They will also have the same captain after Luke Donald opted to stay on in the role.
Paul McGinley has been working in the background as part of the European setup over the last couple of years in preparation for the 2025 Ryder Cup.
Speaking to the Irish Independent, he summed up two big changes Europe made for this edition in order to reverse the trend of poor performances on American soil.
The first thing we’re doing is putting a captain in play who has been there before. Captaining away from home is such a difficult challenge, and to ask somebody to do it as the first go at captaincy was a big ask.
So the first roll of the dice was to put a captain in play who had credibility, who had experience, so that he could hit the ground running…
The second roll of the dice was to come up with an algorithm and qualification criteria that were going to give us a chance of having, in all honesty, a pretty experienced team. And we think we did that.
It certainly seems no coincidence that the European team is almost identical to the one that won in Rome, with Rasmus Hojgaard the only debutant.
It will be interesting to see if those changes can help lead them to a rare Ryder Cup victory across the Atlantic.
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