Woosnam has words of advice for Paul
Ex-Ryder Cup captain passes on his experience
IAN WOOSNAM has warned Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley to expect to be left mentally and physically drained by his stint as skipper at Gleneagles next month. Eight years after leading Europe to a record-equalling 18½-9½ victory at the K-Club, the Welshman revealed that it took him a long time to recover from his time in charge.
‘I was exhausted after the K-Club,’ admitted the 56-year-old. ‘I had a lot more going on in my life than people thought and situations they didn’t know about, personally as well as professionally.
‘But what really upset me was Thomas Bjorn. The hardest decision of captaincy is leaving players out and the toughest call I had was leaving Bjorn out of the team.
‘I didn’t know whether I was going to choose Lee Westwood or Bjorn. In the end I went with Westwood because I had chosen Darren Clarke and I thought that was the correct pairing.
‘That was the only reason I made that decision. But I got some stick from Bjorn. He went ballistic and that knocked me for six and put a lot of pressure on me. I took it personally and I wanted to prove something, and I think I did.
‘When Bjorn was a vice captain to Colin Montgomerie at Celtic Manor in 2010 and had to make a decision, he couldn’t make one and they asked for another hour before they left out Paul Casey.
‘When it comes to selecting your wild cards, it would be easier just to go down the list and pick the next players in order, but they might not be playing very well and could have got their points up early.’
Woosnam, who is competing in the SSE Scottish Senior Open at St Andrews this weekend, says he has never been close to McGinley.
But he has the utmost respect for the 47-year-old Irishman.
‘Paul is one of those guys that if you want to know something, he has the answer. I suppose in time I thought he was going to be a Ryder Cup captain, although it’s come a wee bit sooner than I imagined,’ he added.
‘But he’ll make a fine captain. He knows what he’s doing and he says the right things.
‘It’s a massive job now. It was big when I did it but it has got bigger and there’s a hell of a lot to think about, but he seems to be coping well.
‘It takes over your life a little bit. There are a lot of demands from the press and when it’s on home soil there’s a lot more to do — setting up the course and the clothes and everything.
‘I was never that close to Paul. When he played in 2006 he wasn’t playing that well beforehand and I spoke to him a couple of times before the match and told him all he could do was his best.
‘I told him just to practice hard and see how it went from there, in an effort to give him some confidence, and he played pretty well in the end.’
Woosnam says that a key part of captaincy is ensuring that morale remains high.
‘You’ve got 12 superstars and how are you going to get them to play together as a team?’ he said. ‘I just told them to do what they usually did, but they were there for one thing only and that was to win the Ryder Cup.
‘I remember when I made the team for the Friday morning the four lads I left out were all disappointed and one of my assistants, Peter Baker, pointed that out to me.
‘So I rushed out and told them they would all definitely be playing in the afternoon and that put a big smile on their faces. I had always intended to play everybody on the first day, but my plan was to go with the longest hitters in the fourballs because the course was playing long and that worked out pretty good in the end.
‘I think Padraig Harrington and Jose Maria Olazabal had had a bit of a bust-up in the Seve Trophy and Olazabal stood up and made a great little speech and said we were there to win, so let bygones be bygones.
‘We had a fantastic week, the way they gelled. I think Darren’s wife having passed away also made it more significant the way we were all together.
‘The young players have no fear and that’s why it’s important to have a balance because the older players know the score and if you get that balance right, you’ll come up with a strong team.’