‘Leaving egos at door’ the key to Ryder Cup success, says Graeme McDowell

By Declan Warrington

Ryder Cup vice-captain Graeme McDowell believes the key to success over the United States came down to players treating each other as equals and “leaving their egos at the door”.

In the fall-out from the loss of the trophy Patrick Reed, the self-styled Captain America, was first to break rank by suggesting the reason why a team with six of the world’s top 10 in it - plus 14-time major winner Tiger Woods and veteran Phil Mickelson - failed so badly was because there was no sense of equality.

McDowell said while the United States played up to their egos the opposite was true of a self-deprecating European team.

“It was the difference between bringing your egos with you, which was apparently on the American locker room wall - and I’m not sure what that means,” McDowell said.

“It’s not how you build a team, right? You leave your egos at the door. You come together and you play together. My objective opinion this week was that’s what the guys are great at and they do it naturally.”

“You don’t have to teach it - you can’t teach it - they just do it naturally; you can’t tell them how to do it they just do it and they are very good at it.”

Europe had their own stars and major winners - Rory McIlroy, Justin Rose, Henrik Stenson and Francesco Molinari - but there was never any sense of entitlement or superiority.

“Just having an opinion on things, seeing the ways these guys come together is my big takeaway from the week,” said McDowell.

“It is the adage of ‘yeah, the Europeans have camaraderie blah, blah, blah’ but I’ve seen it with my own eyes this week. The golfing achievement level from Justin Rose and Rory McIlroy all the way down to the rookies, for example, it’s a real thing.

“But these guys, the top players, are able to embrace the young guys, bring them up to a level, partner with them and make them feel an equal to where they could perform with each other.”

Captain Thomas Bjorn is adamant it was his team’s impressive performance - and not the divisions among the Americans - that was the key to their success.

“I don’t want to put too much on if anything went wrong in their team room,” Bjorn said.

“I don’t believe in that. Obviously when you lose sometimes it can be hard and difficult to deal with, when you have expectations of yourself.

“From what I saw from the outside I thought Jim (Furyk, the US captain) did a good job. It just didn’t work out for them this way but I would like to put it down to our 12 players just playing really, really well.”

Europe’s seventh success from the past nine Ryder Cups came amid home advantage, which they will not have in two years’ time at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin.

There had also been some European supporters booing the Americans on the first tee at Le Golf National, but even with the benefits that come through being the hosts, Bjorn believes Europe can retain their trophy.

“Home advantage is great,” he said. “Obviously you get your fans; I don’t think there’s anything that says you can’t win away from home, but it’s tougher away from home, it certainly is. It’s easy to think that it’s an easy thing to keep winning Ryder Cups. You’ve got to want it — you’ve got to want it bad—- this team wanted it very much. They went out and really worked hard, and from the day they set foot in Paris they wanted it probably a little bit more.

“I don’t think me trying to stop them (booing) was going to stop those things, and initially it was there. I heard a bit of it early on, and it’s not something that we particularly want or like, but when you get a big sporting occasion these things happen.”