The Ryder Cup opening ceremony might be the most unnecessary of all opening ceremonies, and this was another classic of the genre. There was some awkward presenting and bad music and, mainly, lots of applause. The players’ partners got an applause. Team Europe’s traveling officials got an applause, whoever they are. The Space Force even got an applause.
Yet to Luke Donald, this was an opportunity. He began his ceremony speech in Rome speaking flawless Italian, stringing together several sentences to huge cheers from the home crowd. “It felt like we were already one up,” Shane Lowry later said of that moment, the day before play started at Marco Simone.
There was no such flamboyance this time at Bethpage Black, but it was clear Donald had thought carefully about his words. Notably, he took a clear dig at the US team and the story that has dominated the build-up, that of their players being paid to play.
“We are defined by a belief that we are playing for something greater than ourselves. It is not about prize money,” he said, with a pause, “or world ranking points. It’s about pride. It’s about representing your flag, your shirt, and the legacy you leave behind.”
Donald also used the speech to set out his mission statement in front of his team. Europe’s goal this week is simple: win 14 points and they will take the Ryder Cup home. They did it in Rome and now they are back, unusually with the same captain and virtually the same players, bar one Danish twin swapped for another, to repeat the trick.
Except history tells us that playing as the away team is an entirely different prospect. Only twice this century has the visiting team won the tournament. The raucous noise, the intensity of the rivalry, it makes for an otherworldly experience from typical tour golf, and away teams wilt.
It is why the European Tour and its Ryder Cup advisory committee decided they had to do things differently this time, partly by staying the same. They made the decision to retain Donald so he would not be learning on the job, as with most previous touring captains.
“The first roll of the dice was to bring back an ex-captain,” explained Paul McGinley last week. Donald hired McGinley as a strategic advisor ahead of Bethpage. “That was the most important thing, somebody who could have credibility with the players and hit the ground running.
“The second thing was the data was showing us that rookies don’t really perform away from home. It’s very difficult to play your first Ryder Cup in that environment.”
Europe deliberately recalibrated the selection criteria to favour most of the players who had won in Rome. They wanted to arrive at Bethpage with experience, knowhow and their well-established culture of success intact.
They vowed to learn from past mistakes too, even American ones. The US team turned up in Rome on the Monday, practised for a couple of days and then got sent packing over a bruising long weekend, mocked on the fairways by European fans and crushed on the greens by the European players.
Europe have not made the same error. They employed sleep experts to understand how jet-lag would have still been affecting the Americans four days after landing in Rome, which is why Donald’s players flew out to New York two weeks early. They are the first away team ever to embark on a practice trip ahead of the Ryder Cup, spending two days at Bethpage playing 27 holes before an evening together in Manhattan.
They have gleaned information from across the sporting landscape. The advisory committee includes the former Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore and Rugby Football Union chief executive Ian Ritchie, as well as McGinley. They have taken advice from experts in penalty shootouts, the theory being that the routine of a striker such as Harry Kane is not unlike that of a golfer before a crucial putt – and they all feel crucial in the Ryder Cup, an event of such small margins and momentum swings.
Donald has in the past drawn on advice from Michael Jordan, Novak Djokovic and Ben Stokes, and this month he asked the former England rugby captain Owen Farrell to speak to the players when they gathered at Wentworth for the BMW PGA Championship. Farrell is no stranger to hostility from opponents and foreign crowds, and he memorably stared down the New Zealand haka with a smirk before England beat the All Blacks in the 2019 World Cup semi-final.
That experience of performing in a cauldron is what Europe’s entire preparation has been geared towards. They have hired virtual reality headsets to simulate the experience of being hounded by well-hydrated New Yorkers, because they know there will be moments when it gets personal and the mood turns nasty.
Here, Donald made a bold play to the American fans, again mentioning “playing for more than money” as he sought to prey on any division over player payments. He tried to win them over, adding: “You, the fans, respect effort over ego. You make us earn every cheer. We may not be your team, but we will give you something to respect, something to admire, and maybe, by the end of this week, something to cheer for.”
Donald has sought the advice of former European captains, directly asking those who failed in America, like Nick Faldo, what they would have done differently. Like in Rome, he has also leant on his vice-captain Edoardo Molinari’s statistical analysis to identify the right pairings months in advance.
Their reconnaissance mission also served another purpose, one of making the sights and smells familiar to the players. Playing a Ryder Cup can have the feel of a first day at school for the players, not knowing exactly where to go, or when, out of the cadence of a normal week on tour. Europe’s players have already done the walk from their makeshift locker rooms, they know the route to the driving range, the putting green and onto the first tee.
The hope is that all these minor details, these marginal gains, add up to a sense of clarity for the players. They will not be knocked off course by jet-lag, unfamiliar surroundings, inexperienced teammates or uncertain captaincy. They will not, McGinley believes, buckle in a hostile environment.
“This is the most prepared team I’ve ever come across,” he said. “We have come at this very differently from any away match before.”
It may all still come crashing down, of course. America’s talent runs deep, led by the best player in the world. They have a captain in Keegan Bradley who knows all about the Ryder Cup and cares passionately – so often the accusation levelled at losing US teams has been a lack of unity and desire, but that is unlikely to be an issue at Bethpage.
Yet they come up against a European team who have fostered an extraordinary atmosphere, one almost unique in Ryder Cup history, more like a club team than a collection of internationals. It is why this Ryder Cup is so hard to call. The US are slight favourites, but if any team can break the streak of humbling away defeats, it is surely Europe under the meticulous planning of their captain Donald.
His final sign off was one of quiet defiance, treading a careful line between warmth and fighting talk. “These 12 men are ready. Europe are ready. Enjoy the Ryder Cup, and we’ll see you bright and early on Friday morning.”
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