Social media has been awash with calls for Luke Donald to lead Europe at the next Ryder Cup in Ireland.
As good a job as he has done – and he stands shoulder to shoulder with Tony Jacklin – it is time for the Englishman to hand over the mantle, to walk away with his head held high. He achieved something that nobody other than Jacklin has achieved, winning back to back, in Rome and New York.
He was a magnificent leader and a man who proved that he also possesses a ruthless streak. He was magnificent at every turn.
But it is time for change.
Who Should Succeed Luke Donald as Ryder Cup Captain?
So who should succeed him?
Let’s get something out of the way first. It cannot be Ian Poulter, Graeme McDowell, Lee Westwood or Sergio Garcia, four Ryder Cup stalwarts who opted to throw in their lot with LIV Golf. They gave up their chance when they signed on the dotted line for LIV.
For my money, the only logical choice is Justin Rose. There will be those who will want an Irishman at the helm in 2027 and in ideal world that is something we would all want to see.
But who?
Padraig Harrington and Darren Clarke have both done the job and, quite frankly, were not up to the task.
It is widely believed that Rory McIlroy has already been approached and immediately ruled himself out. We have already been through the whole will-he-won’t-he play thing with Keegan Bradley on the American side. There is no doubt that Bradley wanted to play but he knew the demands on his time when the match got under way would be too great.
The pressure on McIlroy as a playing captain for a match held on Irish soil would be unimaginable.
There will be others who will call for Paul McGinley to be given a second bite at the cherry. He was a brilliant leader at Gleneagles and was the first captain to see the value of analytical data – before a shot was hit in Scotland he already knew the strengths and weaknesses of all of his players, and had all his pairings prepared. He left nothing to chance.
He was part of Donald’s backroom team and played a key role in the success at Bethpage but he is out of touch with the current crop of players. I believe that the Ryder Cup needs a captain who is still playing at the highest level and who is still regularly rubbing shoulders with the men he will lead. And that rules out McGinley.
There is, of course, a chance that Rose may find himself with a similar dilemma to Bradley in two years’ time but he will be 47 years old by then and surely not even the Englishman can continue to defy the years.
He understands what the Ryder Cup is all about and is incredibly popular among his peers. He is a natural choice. From a European point of view, the great thing is that everything else is already in place. Donald has established a template that will surely be followed.
I will be surprised if anybody other than Rose gets the nod – and I am certain that he will jump at the chance of doing the job.
Who Will Captain Team USA in 2027?
The question for the Americans is: where do they go from here?
That final-day fightback cannot paper over the cracks of what went before. Bradley made some poor decisions. He also made some calls that were utterly baffling, such as sticking with Collin Morikawa and Harris English as a foursomes partnership when they were roundly beaten on day one.
The popular choice would be Tiger Woods but he has already said no once and I don’t believe he will want to give the captain’s post the commitment it now requires.
There has also been a suggestion that Jim Furyk gets the call. This is the same Furyk whose hapless leadership contributed to a sound thrashing at Le Golf National in 2018. Apparently Steve Stricker is also in the frame again. He was the captain when the USA thumped Europe at Whistling Straits but he now spends his life on the Champions Tour.
Surely it will come down to a choice between Webb Simpson, Brandt Snedeker and Matt Kuchar and, for my money at least, Kuchar will be the man who leads the USA to Ireland.
It is abundantly clear that no matter who is charged with leading the Americans they must find a way of moulding them together as a team, something that Europe consistently manages to do. There remains a sense that many of the Americans actually don’t seem to like each other very much and that they struggle to buy into the team ethic.
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