Ian Poulter leading the pack of future Ryder Cup captains waiting in the wings

Team Europe's Ian Poulter: One of up to seven future Ryder Cup captains involved with the visitors in Wisconsin. Picture: PA

It was a throwaway question, a little ice breaker to lift the mood at the start of an early morning press conference before anyone had time to grab breakfast.

“When you’re captain in 2025,” someone asked Ian Poulter, “will you be having press conferences at 7.30 am?” “Nope,” Poulter said without the slightest hesitation, as if the query of his captaincy was based on a foregone conclusion.

It makes sense, of course. Poulter will be 49 in four years when the matches return to the United States at Bethpage Black in New York. The Englishman has been the beating heart of six previous European Ryder Cup teams, winning five of those six encounters while compiling a 14-6-2 match record including a spotless 5-0-1 in singles play. He’d relish the opportunity to captain a team to victory at what should be the most raucous and challenging of hostile venues.

“It’s not easy to play away from home,” said Poulter, who has been part of road winning teams at Oak Hill and Medinah. “It feels pretty rewarding at the end of the week if we can get it done.” While the task at hand — trying to beat a team of highly ranked Americans this week at Whistling Straits — is at the forefront of Poulter’s and every European player’s mind, it’s almost impossible to look at the collection of talent in the European team room and not think about the future.

While Pádraig Harrington stands as captain this week, it’s likely as many as the next seven European Ryder Cup captains are gathered here on the shore of Lake Michigan — three of the set to play.

The European Tour has only gone as far as naming the host sites of its next two Ryder Cup venues — 2023 at Marco Simone near Rome, and 2027 at Adare Manor — much less its future captains, but wealth of options is obvious.

There’s Lee Westwood, playing in his record-tying 11th Ryder Cup. He’ll be 50 in two years and has made it plain he’d welcome the chance to lead Team Europe in Rome. Poulter will be 50 in 2025 and has the personality and ego to handle bringing a team into the cauldron of New York fans at Bethpage.

Ireland’s Graeme McDowell — one of Harrington’s hands-on vice captains this week — will be 48 in 2027 and has voiced his desire to be a homegrown captain in Ireland.

Then there’s Sergio Garcia, the highest points-earning European player in Ryder Cup history, who will be 49 in 2029 when the Ryder Cup will be staged again at Hazeltine in Minnesota. Harrington, at one time an often bitter rival of Garcia’s, already sees the natural captain tendencies in the Spaniard which harken to the patron saint of European golf, Seve Ballesteros.

“As captain, probably Sergio a little bit more has exceeded my expectations,” Harrington said. “I kind of knew this, but really he works really hard behind the scenes. I wouldn’t say there isn’t a player in that room that Sergio hasn’t had a quiet word with. So, he’s continually working, working that.”

That’s the easy part to project. After that there are three more vice captains this week whose candidacies for a captaincy are each strong. There’s England’s Luke Donald, who played on four winning Ryder Cup teams and serving for the second time as vice captain, and Sweden’s Henrik Stenson, a five-time Ryder Cupper serving for the first time this week as vice captain. Both are 45 years old and would 53 or 55 in 2031 and 2033.

Justin Rose, who just missed getting one of Harrington’s picks to play a sixth Ryder Cup, is 41 and another prime candidate to land one of those 2031 or ’33 captaincies.

Martin Kaymer, who clinched the decisive point at Medinah in 2012, would seem a natural choice should the European Tour finally decide to take the matches to Germany in 2035 when he’ll be 50.

The team room this week is truly an embarrassment of riches from the most prosperous era of European Ryder Cup success, with all but Rose on site. It would seem a shame if any of them got passed over for a chance to captain Team Europe, but the maths suggests one of them might be this generation’s Sandy Lyle or Larry Nelson and not get the call.

Still, it’s a line of succession far stronger than anything America presents, with blends of personalities that range from passionate (Poulter and Garcia) to meticulous (McDowell, Donald, Rose, and Kaymer) to wryly witty (Westwood and Stenson) that offer the full spectrum of captaincy styles.

Harrington sees Europe’s experience as his strength this week that will rub off to create another generation of leaders to fill in the pipeline.

“I do believe there is a nice natural succession in Europe,” Harrington said. “The players I see in the middle of their careers now — probably just slightly less than the middle of their careers to the middle of their careers — they’ve got great role models in the experienced players and they see what they do.

“I think Europe is in a very strong place going forward, in terms of that. Clearly, we have the top-end experience, but there’s a nice succession coming along.”