From Alex Ferguson to DJ Spoony, the heavyweights who inspired Ryder Cup team rooms

10 of the men who have talked the talk in Ryder Cup week

Mon, 20 Sep, 2021 - 21:49

Larry Ryan

There are still the uninitiated out there who think the Ryder Cup is won on the golf course. Not so, of course. All the heavy lifting is done in the ‘team room’. You cannot leave anything to chance with the feckless modern golfer, in case he isn’t bursting with continental pride while standing over a five-footer.

As José María Olazábal reminded us, there will be times, this week, when warriors representing competing civilisations must reach into “the depths of their souls” to get down in two.

Luckily, there is officer material pulling all this together. Next week, one of Pádraig Harrington and Steve Stricker can ease into a soft life regaling the boardrooms of the Fortune 500 on how it was done.

But for now they are in the trenches, calibrating the perfect quantity and heft of vice-captain, laying out the right slacks, daubing the appropriate slogans on the wall, colour-coding the goldfish. And, critically, selecting the perfect calibre of motivational speaker.

Here are just 10 of the men — no this isn’t woman’s work, seemingly — who have talked the talk in Ryder Cup week, even if their players haven’t always gone on to walk the good walk spoiled.

Alex Ferguson

Nothing much is known about how Paul McGinley masterminded European victory in 2014, though it somehow leaked out that Fergie advised the troops to make Gleneagles “a fortress”. Presumably, McGinley spent the rest of the week reminding rules officials of their responsibilities.

Paul O’Connell

After big Paulie rallied the troops for Darren Clarke in 2016, European rookie Matt Fitzpatrick revealed he’d picked up some crucial pointers on the best times to really try and get the ball into the hole. “If your opponent hits it, misses the green, and it’s a tricky up-and-down, you’ve got to stick one in close and put the pressure on, and just holing the putts at the right time I think is important. That’s the big thing I took out from Paul is to own each moment that you get in front of you.”

Dynamo

Sadly, there was only so much Paul could do for a side who spent the rest of that evening dazzled by the tricks of magician Dynamo. By the time the Americans were spraying champagne from the Hazeltine balcony, European spirit also looked like an illusion.

Pep Guardiola

Concerned the cliche count was dangerously under-par, Olazabal took Pep’s advice and showed Europe’s heroes scenes from Gladiator as well as Al Pacino’s ‘inches’ speech from Any Given Sunday ahead of the 2012 contest. Guardiola also spoke to the team ahead of the ‘Miracle in Medinah’, though thankfully Olly decided against his advice to pack their bags with irons at the expense of a decent putter.

Michael Jordan

The USA fancied their chances in 2018, certain the NBA legend had adequately galvanised them for the notorious ‘Welcome to Hell’ bearpit of a Paris golf resort. “Michael was talking about how he would always play on the road against tough opponents or crowds that were always against him,” Brooks Koepka said. “He talked about how he didn’t hear the crowd. I took it as he couldn’t wait to shut them up, and the second he would go off … the quieter they are. I thought that was pretty cool.”

Nicko McBrain

Nick Faldo secured the services of the Iron Maiden drummer for Valhalla in 2008 to ‘loosen people up’. Unfortunately, it was love, not war, soon on European minds. “What I didn’t know is that Iron Maiden are huge in places like Sweden and Denmark, and so the wives of the Scandinavian players were coming up to me and telling me they had their first date listening to Iron Maiden, or got engaged to Iron Maiden.”

DJ Spoony

Faldo also needed a lot more from Spoony in ’08, who was responsible for providing “chilling, inspirational stuff” in his role in charge of the official team room music. It’s not to say the garage superstar’s playlist didn’t get the vibe right, but Faldo was soon calling Sergio Garcia “useless”, and vice-captain Sam Torrance later labelling his boss an arsehole.

Gareth Edwards

Colin Montgomerie called upon the former Wales rugby skipper to rally forces at Celtic Manor in 2010 and Edwards duly obliged by affording the assembled combatants honorary membership of humanity’s most prestigious club — “It’s the same as playing for the Lions”.

Major Dan Rooney

After failing to find anybody who’d done a Lions tour of duty, USA skipper Corey Pavin settled for decorated Iraq fighter pilot Rooney for this deadly mission. ”We hope to pull it off on hostile territory.”

George Bush

Who will ever forget the terrifying, horrendous scenes on the ‘day of shame’ at the ‘Battle of Brookline’ in 1999, when men fist-pumped extravagantly and women walked close to the hole in celebration? “Worse than being at a soccer match,” concluded Michael Bonallack, former secretary of the Royal and Ancient. No wonder, after George Bush, then the Texas governor, read Ben Crenshaw’s side a letter from the Alamo the night before the singles.