Langer will hand over captaincy, but not to Montgomerie
Victorious skipper Langer touched down at Heathrow Airport with 10 of his triumphant team members, as Padraig Harrington and Luke Donald remained in Detroit.
After toasting his heroes with champagne, Langer revealed he was highly unlikely to put himself forward to do the job again at The K Club in Ireland in two years’ time.
Scottish hero Montgomerie has been mentioned as a possible successor, along with the likes of Nick Faldo, Ian Woosnam and Thomas Bjorn, but Langer said 41-year-old Monty was still too young to be in charge, because he could still do a job for the team as a player.
“I need time to reflect, but I still think I am going to stick to what I said. I am going to do it only once, because it is not right and fair to the many other guys waiting in line who deserve to do this too,” said Langer.
“I had my chance at it, I did as well as I could and I enjoyed my time with these guys.
“I don’t think I would want to be involved as a vice-captain either. Maybe, I’ll come over as an adviser of some sort, but I’ll let some others take control.
“As for Colin, he is too young to be captain just yet. He should carry on playing. He can play in at least three more Ryder Cups yet.”
Montgomerie was one of Langer’s wild-card picks for Oakland Hills and holed the putt which ensured Europe won the three-day event.
The Scot did not differ from Langer and also played down suggestions he might become captain.
“If I can perform like this and can help the team in some way then I would like to part of it. I enjoy the format and it suits my game,” he said.
Montgomerie laid it on the line when he said: “I’ve played for a number of great captains and no one better than Bernhard.”
“We in Europe are quite close. We spend a lot more time together than possibly the US team does as a whole,” he said.
“We tend to play for each other and you can see how delighted we all are, not individually but as a team. That feeling was brought about by Bernhard very, very much over the last year.
“I didn’t know I was in the team until half an hour before the selection was announced, but I knew Bernhard would get this team together and play for each other and that’s what we did this week. It was proved conclusively from Friday morning what a team we were.”
Langer admits that just about everything he touched last week turned to gold, but admitted that: “Padraig said I scolded him, maybe I shouldn’t have done that and I didn’t mean to. It might only have come over wrong, so maybe that’s what I did wrong. But I think most other things went well.
“If I was brash on Saturday night in saying we’d take two points from the top three, I’m sorry it came over that way. That was just a simple statement of faith I had in my guys. I just felt my guys could bring two points and they almost did it. So I was wrong and I apologise. We only got 1 1/2,” he said.
When he handled himself like that, Langer was untouchable, cool, considerate, even witty.
Poor Hal Sutton - the American captain - had a totally different wicket on which to face the music.
To be fair, he was defended well by some of his senior players, especially Davis Love III and, to a lesser extent, by the hapless Phil Mickelson.
Love said when he himself, Tiger Woods and Mickelson don’t perform, it’s not the captain who should be blamed, it’s the players themselves.
Sutton wouldn’t argue.
IT was a very tired looking group of golfers who walked into the arrivals hall at Terminal 3 last night, and Langer revealed it had been a relatively quiet flight home.
He raised a glass of champagne to his team and said: “Here’s to the dream team, the winning team. We had the most awesome week you could imagine.
“We set off to Detroit a week ago with the cup to defend it, but we didn’t just defend it, we got an overwhelming victory, with the largest winning margin in a long, long time, if not ever. I am so proud of the 12 players, they did an incredible job and we couldn’t have dreamed of a better outcome than what happened, because we beat them every single day.
“I read the papers on Sunday and they said the Americans were going to come back and give us a fight.
“Well, they tried, but they really couldn’t match us, because we beat them on Friday, Saturday and in the singles and that shows how strong this team is,” he said.
“I am excited for these guys individually and I am excited for the tour and everybody involved.
“None of us slept last night, we went back to the team room at 11pm and celebrated there.
“We danced with the staff and officials, some went into an Irish pub and celebrated and some others played ping pong and shared some stories and watched the highlights of the golf.
“On the plane, most of us slept for a couple of hours and then the party continued. I am living on adrenaline.
“The welcome is incredible and we appreciate all the fans turning up to welcome us back on home soil so late in the day.
“We are glad to be back and especially to have the cup with us,” said a delighted Langer.
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