The Joy of golf: Why McGinley was Europe’s captain fantastic

Joy Chakravarty 15:26 02/10/2014
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  • Perfect pairing: Graeme McDowell with playing partner Victor Dubuisson.

    Everyone seems to have been left gobsmacked by the leadership skills of Paul McGinley in guiding Europe to a fantastic win in last week’s Ryder Cup at Gleneagles.

    You keep hearing about how a captain’s job ends once the team is out on the golf course, and how winning or losing is up to the 12 men thereafter, but the 40th Ryder Cup conclusively proved how vital the role of a captain can be in a team golf event. Since the day Europe recorded the comfortable five-point victory over Team USA, plenty of reasons have been offered as to how the Irishman planned and out-thought Tom Watson.

    Critics have gone ga-ga over a range of his actions – like his choice of the team gift (a beautiful mechanical watch case which can hold six watches, and he urged the team to make sure they fill it with Ryder Cup winners watches over the next five editions), the use of blue and gold fishes in an aquarium he put in the middle of the team room, the posters with motivational quotes, the use of Sir Alex Ferguson as the inspirational speaker and so on.

    But my personal favourite is the way he handled Victor Dubuisson.

    It was a classic case of a captain plotting his way months before the start of the tournament, which was in total contrast to Watson, who decided to give a wild card to Webb Simpson on the day of making his announcement, saying it was a ‘gut’ feel after the player sent a passionate text to him that morning.

    Compare that to what McGinley did with Dubuisson and McDowell.

    Once the Frenchman, notorious for being a loner and shy to the point of being annoying, effectively sealed his place in the team by finishing runner-up at the WGC-Accenture Match Play, McGinley started working on him making sure he would not feel out of place at Gleneagles. As early as April this year, McGinley had made up his mind that the extrovert McDowell, a complete opposite in character, would make the perfect partner for Dubuisson.

    Not only did he have the experience to mentor the youngster, McGinley was also sure McDowell would gain the confidence and trust of Dubuisson much quicker than anybody else. The captain then made it a point to be at tournaments where Dubuisson was playing. He also used his position to engineer the draw of European Tour events and ‘fixed’ the tee times in such a manner that the 24-year-old would spend most of his time in the company of other possible Ryder Cup players.

    At the BMW International Open, he was paired with Henrik Stenson, who had already sealed his place in the team. At the Scottish Open, he went out the first two days with Thomas Bjorn, another player who seemed to have locked his place in the team at that time. And at the French Open, the only European Tour event he played alongside McDowell, the two were part of the threeball the first two days.

    Just when the plan looked like going well, came another twist.

    McDowell himself started to lose ground in the standings and there was a possibility he might drop out of the top nine. He had already decided he would not play the Deutsche Bank Championship in the Playoffs to be with his wife for the birth of their first child.

    Which also meant that he’d probably not make it to the Tour Championship and collect enough points to hang on to the final automatic spot.

    McGinley was well aware of what was happening with McDowell, and it was on the Sunday evening of the PGA Championship, three weeks before naming his wild cards, that he spoke to the Northern Irishman for over an hour. He told him to concentrate on his wife and assured that whatever happened vis-a-vis the rankings, he would be picked.

    One of the biggest talking points going into the week was how Dubuisson would adjust to the team environment. But by that time, he had already been broken in. It really was a different Dubuisson that we saw at Gleneagles – he was smiling a lot more, he was looking into the eyes of the journalists he was speaking to – and no longer was he uttering monosyllabic answers.

    McGinley has been good for European golf. I have a feeling he will be immense for the future of the supremely talented Dubuisson.

    The way forward for US
    Here are a few suggestions on what Team USA can do to ensure Hazeltine in 2016 is not as painful as Medinah in 2012…

    • Appoint a captain who is still active on the main Tour. At least Davis Love III got beaten by an exceptional performance at Medinah, and not because of tactical blunders that came from not knowing his players well enough.
    • Get the PGA Tour to share ownership of the event with the PGA of America. Like the European Tour, they have their finger more on the pulse.
    • Ensure that there is a players’ body that nominates and chooses the captain and not some officials who have hardly played competitive golf. The captain needs to be more involved with the players over the entire duration of his tenure.
    • Involve some of the senior players – like Phil Mickelson (pictured) and Jim Furyk this year – in team matters from the beginning of the Ryder Cup year.

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