Clarke and McGinley bury the hatchet over Ryder Cup row
Captain Darren Clarke has only just patched up one five-year feud sparked by the Ryder Cup, but he insists he will still be ruthless in his bid to keep up Europe’s domination of America
EUROPEAN Ryder Cup captain Darren Clarke has ended the bitter falling-out between him and his predecessor Paul McGinley by apologising for mistakes he made in the build-up to the 2014 competition at Gleneagles.
McGinley felt betrayed when his old friend entered the race for the 2014 captaincy against him and later appeared to back Colin Montgomerie’s candidacy.
McGinley led Europe to victory but the two have barely been on speaking terms. Clarke (above), who will captain Europe against the US this autumn, said: ‘Paul and I had a great chat in Dubai and I apologised. We have buried the hatchet. I made some mistakes and I accept that.’
IT is about control for Darren Clarke. It always has been. Everyone who knows Europe’s Ryder Cup captain also knows that the public image of the hedonistic, happy-go-lucky, cigar-smoking, Guinness-swilling Mr Geniality doesn’t reflect the real man. It does not reveal the workaholic or the perfectionist, the golfer you give a wide berth when he falls short of his own expectations.
It does not reveal the man who is already working on a third draft of his Ryder Cup opening ceremony speech even though he is more than six months away from making it. Clarke has been practising with an autocue and he will take his own visual prompt to Hazeltine in late September rather than rely on one provided by the organisers. In case it fails, he will have a copy of his speech tucked inside his top pocket.
It does not reveal the man who cheerfully admits he has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Take the clothes in his wardrobe, for instance. Because his weight fluctuates, they are hung in size order and meticulously arranged in a line going from dark to light. ‘It’s completely messed up,’ says Clarke, laughing. Which is another way of saying it is obsessively ordered.
If being organised can be measured on a sliding scale that runs from ‘Relaxed’ to ‘Bernhard Langer’, Clarke says he is much closer to the Langer end of the spectrum. Langer was the epitome of micro-control at Oakland Hills in 2004 and Clarke is already routinely studying data sent back to him from every tournament, recording prospective team members’ performances on par threes and par fives. Nothing will be left to chance.
It is unlikely the 2011 Open champion will be scribbling potential pairings on scraps of paper during practice and trying to pass them off as a sandwich order, as Sir Nick Faldo did at Valhalla in 2008. Clarke will have a Plan A, a Plan B and a Plan C. He will organise. He will be involved. He will man-manage. He will know the characters of each of his players inside-out.
Part of it is fear of failure. Europe have won six of the last seven Ryder Cups and Clarke, 47, does not want to be remembered as one of the exceptions to the rule. ‘Fear of failure has been my biggest driving force since I started playing the game,’ he says. ‘That goes right back to my days as an amateur. If I don’t prepare properly, failure is inevitable.’
It was as part of the need for order that Clarke spoke to his immediate predecessor as Ryder Cup captain, Paul McGinley, on the driving range at a tournament in Dubai last month. The two men, once close friends, had fallen out bitterly. For several years, it had become a running sore in Clarke’s life. He wanted to heal it.
For a while, Clarke had felt powerless. Partly, that was because he knew he was in the wrong. In 2011, he had written a private letter to McGinley backing McGinley’s bid to be Europe’s captain at Gleneagles in 2014. Clarke then put himself forward for the job and later suggested that Europe should appoint Colin Montgomerie to go head to head with American skipper Tom Watson.
McGinley felt betrayed and the friendship between the two men broke down. A little while before McGinley led Europe to victory at Gleneagles, he made it plain in an interview with the Irish Independent that he and Clarke were barely on speaking terms. ‘Our conversations are short and sweet,’ said McGinley. ‘It’s: “How are you?” “Fine.” Move on.’
Clarke hated it. He knew he had made missteps but he felt that trying to correct them around that time would only add fuel to the fire. The falling-out between the pair was public and embarrassing and most sympathy lay with McGinley. As the unease lingered, Clarke knew the responsibility lay with him to put it right.
Clarke is sitting in the Florida sunshine on a terrace outside the Copperhead Clubhouse at the Innisbrook Resort near Tampa and when the subject of his strained relationship with his Ryder Cup predecessor is brought up, he does not attempt to avoid it. He thinks back to the start of last month and the conversation on that driving range that neither man has spoken publically about until now.
‘Paul and I had a great conversation in Dubai,’ says Clarke. ‘We must have stood and talked for an hour on the range. He was giving me tips and advice about what he had done. We had a great conversation there and I apologised to him.
‘Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I have made some mistakes in my career. We have all made some mistakes. I held my hands up and I got things wrong. Just with what was going on around that time.
‘Did I support Monty that much? No. I was just trying to do what I thought was the right thing for the team. I wasn’t against Paul. I just saw options.
‘I got accused of all sorts of bits and pieces, which were incorrect at the time. There was no point in me saying a word because I wasn’t going to go anywhere with it. All I was concerned about was doing the right thing for Europe and things got twisted and taken out of my hands.
‘I let things go. I have moved on. I have made my peace with Paul and he was brilliant in Dubai. I can go back to him and run things past him. He said: “Whatever you want, let me know.”
‘We have buried the hatchet and we are moving forward. We have drawn a line under it. He offered me all sorts of advice. He couldn’t have been better. That feels good because we were very close growing up all the way through our careers.
‘I made some mistakes and hopefully they are mistakes I won’t make again in the future. Everybody makes them now and again and if you are a big enough man, you understand that you have done it. The reason why our relationship broke down was my fault and that’s fine. I am big enough to accept it. By all accounts, Paul was a
brilliant captain at Gleneagles so I would be foolish if I didn’t try to pick his brains. I don’t want to do the same thing as Paul. I want to do it my way. But what he did was very good so I want to pick up as many things from him as possible.’
Clarke deserves plenty of credit for moving to put things right with McGinley. To be able to admit a mistake is a promising sign in a leader and the Northern Irishman possesses other qualities that bode well for his attempt to retain the trophy in Minnesota in the autumn.
He has a rich Ryder Cup heritage, of course. His participation in the 2006 competition at the K Club outside Dublin six weeks after his first wife, Heather, had died, was one of the most moving episodes in the history of the event. He played in five Ryder Cups and won four of them.
There are plenty of indications he will be a good man-manager, he has a commitment to excellence, he is hungry to win, he has a never-ending attention to detail, he has charisma and he is ruthless. Again, maybe ruthlessness is not one of the qualities readily associated with Clarke’s hail-fellow-well-met persona but it is there and it is close to the surface.
He will need it, too. The Ryder Cup provokes tensions and melodramas like no other event in golf. The wildcard selection process is often traumatic. It can cost friends their friendships. Sometimes, the fallout is spectacular.spectacular When Thomas Bjorn was left out of the 2008 Ryder Cup team by Ian Woosnam, his reaction was volcanic. ‘My relationship with him is completely dead,’ said Bjorn, amid a volley of insults.
Clarke knows he will face tough choices. Others have already wondered aloud whether he might be tempted to offer preferential treatment to old pals like Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter if they fail to qualify automatically for Hazeltine and need to rely on being among Clarke’s three wildcard picks. Clarke snorts with contempt about that idea.
‘An old pals’ act?’ he says. ‘How could I possibly do that? The Ryder Cup is much, much more important than an old pals’ act. That does not happen. Under no circumstances would I let myself... that’s not going to happen. No chance. I would have no problem with saying to Lee I was picking a rookie instead of him for a wildcard. Lee would be my best mate but I would have no problem. Why? Because it’s for the team. It’s not individuals. You have got to manage individuals’ egos but the team is there together.
‘The wildcards could be difficult decisions. The phone calls to the guys that don’t make the team — especially if I am very close to them — that will be very difficult. But that’s what I have tot do. That’s part of the job. It’s part ofo the remit. But to have to do that, I have no issue with that at all. It wouldn’t cost me a thought.
‘It could cost me friendships. That may well be the case. But I haveh to do what I have to do for the betterment of the European Tour. It’s a position where tough decisionsde have to be made andan when the Tour affordedaffo me the honour of beingbein captain, those decisionssion come along with it. Sentiment?Sen There is no place for sentiment in getting the best team possible. ‘There‘The is a ruthless streak to me.me Very much so. If you were to analyse successful professionalprofes golfers, if they are notno ruthless, they are not successful.succes It’s as simple as that. OurO job and our profession demandsde selfishness and ruthlessnessruthless and inner desire. You havehav to put your job and your golf at the forefront of what you are trying to do, otherwise you will never be successful. The ruthless streak: if I think it will be for the best, I have no problem using it.’
None of that is to say that Westwood or Poulter, or both, will not get wildcards if they need them. Both still have ample opportunity to qualify by right. If they come up short, Clarke says their chances would depend partly on their form and partly on the composition of the team and whether it would benefit from their experience. Clarke picked both men for the Eurasia Cup recently, where their involvement was a resounding success.
Despite Europe’s recent dominance, Clarke knows there is no room for complacency. The idea there ever might be is something else he laughs at. The US will be at home, they will have rowdy support and, as things stand, they boast five of the world’s top 10 golfers, including the clear No 1, Jordan Spieth.
They are working on their team bonding, too. Again. Jack Nicklaus organised a dinner for a score or more of America’s leading players and the US captain, Davis Love III, at his home recently. After the disaster at Gleneagles, the US also formed a Ryder Cup taskforce. Clarke smiles at that notion.
‘Ah, the taskforce, yes,’ he says. ‘I think it’s the highest compliment they can pay the European Tour. If they think they need to do all this kind of stuff to find a winning formula and they care about the Ryder Cup that much, it’s a great compliment.
‘We have that spirit. We don’t need to do anything. We won’t lose that under my captaincy, under the next captain or the next captain. That European team spirit can’t be trained. It is not false. It’s what we have, it’s what we do, it’s what we are. It’s bred into us in the European Tour.
‘Hazeltine is a tough assignment, unquestionably. But it’s a great assignment. It’s a huge honour for me. I am fortunate that any time I have played over here, the fans and the crowds have always been very good to me. I know what to expect. They do have a number of young guys coming through in strong form but we are a long way away from September.
‘Don’t forget we have got Rory McIlroy, Justin Rose, Henrik Stenson, Sergio Garcia. We have got Danny Willett playing some of the best golf in the world at the moment. A lot’s made about how strong the Americans are. We are not doing too badly ourselves.’
Before he heads back out to the range, Clarke gets out his phone and scrolls down it for a few seconds, picking out quotes or aphorisms that have helped to motivate him in his life in sport. He says that for many years, he carried around Theodore Roosevelt’s ‘The Man in the Arena’ speech in his wallet.
He scrolls down a bit more. ‘Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain,’ he reads out. ‘Mark Twain.’ Then he finds another favourite, a statement that is unattributed. ‘I do it because I can,’ he says. ‘I can because I want to. I want to because you said I couldn’t.’
Lee would be my best mate but I’d have no problem picking a rookie instead of him