Luke Donald’s Approach to Preparing for the Ryder Cup | Excellence in Process

How do you make the moment count? For Luke Donald it’s about doing something that makes you a little better for the next day and stacking those incremental improvements to create something great. See how Luke integrates this process into his Ryder Cup captaincy as Team Europe looks to win on foreign soil at Bethpage Black.

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I love competing. I still do it. That’s why I’m here. But I’m 47 and it’s hard to compete against these guys. So, the main focus of why I’m playing competitively is just to aid in my captaincy more than anything. We want to create history, but it’s a daily process. Excellence for me is consistency. Doing it day after day after day. Uh understanding what you do is really important and will lead to something great. [Music] This one’s especially important for me with my low back. It’s creating some sort of disassociation so I can bend forward without losing the tilt in my spine. That’s why I’m holding the back. As soon as I go forward, I can feel like that the sensation of where I’m holding my back fat changes. I go to where I can and stretch and then I’m pulling my toe back. Process is one of the most key things as an athlete. Being in the moment, having this moment right now, that’s all you have. So, how do you make this moment count? You do something that makes you a little bit better for the next day. tend to get so stiff and tight. A lot of braking involved in golf. Accelerate, decelerating. So, it’s small incremental improvements. Doing the little things that stacked over time lead to something great. [Applause] One thing I did try to do in Rome was to create a a sort of environment where there wasn’t too much hierarchy within the group. And uh it worked really well. You know, I’m an introvert by nature. So I sit and listen a lot. But I think that’s kind of a benefit sometimes when it comes to being a captain. I’m not a rash person. I don’t make rash decisions. That’s why leading up to New York, preparation is really important. you I have to kind of get all my eggs in a basket and that’s really important for me in terms of not having that too much anxiety underneath it all. Just so we know, have you got any cuz I know what your commitments are, but what are you doing ride a cupwise? You got anything we Well, we’ll catch up about next week barbecue. Yeah. Um there’ll be lots of stuff I need to go over him with him. Okay, cool. Cuz we’re going straight from here upstairs. do the typeless questions uh for the documentary and then obviously car for the course and then do and you were playing tea time 1:30. Yep. Back nine. We got someone tonight, right? Yeah. BMW tonight 9:00 just doing the Q&A quick. Uh 10 minutes from here. Quick in the car, do the Q&A and then back for 10 p.m. 10 p.m. And what time is my prime? 8 8 a.m. 8 in the morning. and then postp ProAm uh 2:00 press conference and just that short 30 minute uh digital content for BMW and then that’s it for uh Wednesday and then you’re all set for Thursday. Go play golf. Go and play golf after that. [Music] For me, you know, I sort of have three hats really. um one is the captaincy, one is competing and playing which leads into the captaincy and the other is family as well. So this summer I’ve actually made a little bit more of a conscious choice to spend some time with my family. My oldest is 15 now. So I’m I’m running out like the good years with her because she soon she’ll be going to college and managing that and having some balance in your life is is pretty important. I think I’m playing five events now from now till the Ryder Cup will be in Europe. Every tournament is important. The um you know it’s one one week closer to to the selection process and time is running out. So there’s a little bit more urgency now uh amongst the players to to try and perform and do something to impress me. [Music] [Music] Eduardo and I played on a Ryder Cup team in 2010 together. And when I got the captaincy in 23, I knew that he was going to be a part of the team because of just how switched on he is. Luke has been number one in the world, which is a very very difficult achievement. Since uh 2023 when when he was named captain for the RDER Cup, we’ve grown a lot closer together. Golf can be a pretty lonely game most of the time, but it’s nice to have a group of friends that um you sort of week in week out um have a bit of community with. Certainly Eduardo is one of those guys for me. What’s your playing schedule next week? Um British Masters Irish went on. I played on four Ryder Cups myself and they were some of the best weeks of my life. And so as a captain, I want to recreate that for my players. So it’s not just about the winning or the losing, it’s connecting them to, you know, why you’re playing Ryder Cups, what’s really important, you know, the families and who they’re playing for and the history and that this is going to be one of the most special weeks that you ever have. We we want to really feed into those intrinsic motivators. That’s pretty powerful stuff and can relate to them playing a really high level on the golf course. Nice. I have to say I was very pleasantly surprised when you know in the month leading up to Rome how he opened up and he really became more not outspoken but like more extroverted. He he was very happy to, you know, chat to players, chat to people involved with the team. Uh, and he did a fantastic job to be honest cuz he he, you know, in a way he changed himself, but deep down is still the same look with the same skills and the same characteristics. I’d love to be only the second captain ever to be a winning captain in Europe for home and away behind Tony Jacquine. But a big goal of a captain is win or lose to have an amazing week with so many memories and relationships that will continue for a lifetime.