Captain’s flexibility can be key to success
YOU need a pretty strong stomach to get through a Ryder Cup on American soil. And that’s just trying to digest the strawberry flavoured cream cheese they lash on to the bagels in the media restaurant.
We’re not sure if Paul Lawrie has been dining on the finest of US fare but something has not agreed with him. For fear of a debilitating menace spreading through Team Europe, the Scottish vice-captain has been confined to barracks after picking up a virus.
“I’m totally gutted,” said Lawrie in a message sent from his quarantined zone. Whether Lawrie can rouse himself for the start of affairs this morning remains to be seen but his compatriot and fellow vicecaptain, Sam Torrance, will be beetling about on the sidelines and savouring yet another Ryder Cup.
After all the humming and hawing over pairings and partnerships, the decisions made by Darren Clarke and Davis Love III, the respective captains of Europe and the US, are finally being put into practice in the foursomes and fourballs.
The skippers can plan things to a tee but, in the fraught nip-andtuck of head-to-head combat, they still need to think on their feet. Torrance knows all about that.
“I arrived at the Belfry in 2002 and I had the order for Friday morning, for Friday afternoon, for Saturday morning, Saturday 41st Ryder Cup, USA v Europe, Hazeltine Golf Club, Chaska, Minnesota Morning foursomes (Europe names first, all times GMT) 13.35 J Rose & H Stenson v J Spieth & P Reed 13.50 R McIlroy & A Sullivan v P Mickelson & R Fowler 14.05 S Garcia & M Kaymer v J Walker & Z Johnson 14.20 T Pieters & L Westwood v D Johnson & M Kuchar afternoon and the singles order,” said Torrance as he reflected on his ultimately triumphant captaincy. “It was all done. But not one of them stayed the same. I’d ripped up every one of them almost in the first hour. As captain you need to be thinking about this.
“You’ve formulated a plan and it’ll not be far from where it was meant to be. But it changes.”
There tends to be a general consensus that every player in the 12-man team should be blooded on the first day but Torrance doesn’t agree with that theory. “Absolutely not,” he responded. “Everyone must play before Sunday but even that’s not written in stone.
“The hardest thing as the matches unfold is making decisions to change things. To rectify something when it’s not going well or to push ahead further if you’re in front.
“The whole scenario can be fluid because you may get players coming in saying, ‘I’ve just lost my driving’. It’s very open to change.”