Everybody is talking about Team Europe’s decisive 17 ½ - 10 ½ victory over the Americans at The 42ndRyder Cup, but few people understand the competition as well as the players and captains who have lived it first-hand.
On the eve of the Farmfoods European Senior Masters, Staysure Tour Members gave their reactions to the magical week in Paris, which marked the ninth European win in the last 12 contests.
“I am immensely proud,” said French golfing icon Jean van de Velde, who competed in The 1999 Ryder Cup and was an important part of the live broadcast from Le Golf National. “As for the team, they’ve shown us, yet again, how much unity they can have. They showed us the definition of what it means to be a team. Everybody was there to serve the other and it was such a pure example, it really felt like they played as one, and I think this is the reason they came out on top.”
“Harmony in the European Team — harmony,” Phillip Price noted. “It looked like they got everything right, even after the first session where they went down. The pairings looked right, the mood looked right, the flow, they got up quickly, they didn’t seem to put a foot wrong, and I thought, ‘Wow, that was some performance from the Captain and the players.'”
The Welshman, who lifted The 2002 Ryder Cup on a team that included the now all-time leading Ryder Cup point scorer Sergio Garcia, was not surprised that the controversial Captain’s pick delivered a historic team-centric performance.
“Sergio was great in our team room,” Price said. “It was delayed a year after what happened in 2001, and there were a couple of us that weren’t playing very well, and I was worried that maybe they didn’t want me, but there was absolutely none of that, not even a glimmer of it.
“Sergio in particular was fantastic, he reinforced to us that we were a team, that we were needed and that he knew we were going to be fantastic, which was brilliant.”
The breakout performance at Le Golf National belonged to Italian superstar Francesco Molinari, who became the first European to go 5-0 at The Ryder Cup, which included taking down Tiger Woods in three separate sessions.
One man with a keen eye on Molinari was ‘the godfather of Italian golf’ Costantino Rocca, who has won The Ryder Cup twice as a member of Team Europe and also defeated the great Woods in Sunday Singles.
“I’m very proud of my Italian friend Francesco,” Rocca said. “On one day you can beat Tiger, but Francesco has proven he can do it anytime, and he played superb.
“I love Francesco, but maybe not as much as Fleetwood does because that’s not possible,” he joked.
“But I’m very proud and after the week I felt tired as if I had just played in it, because of all the excitement.”
The next Ryder Cup on European soil will be held at Marco Simone Golf and Country Club in Rome — an event which Rocca hopes will build on the legacy he started, and that Molinari continues today.
“For me it’s fantastic, I never dreamt The Ryder Cup would be coming to Italy, and now with Francesco, it’s very special for us,” he said. “Now we have to take this opportunity to improve our facilities and develop great players. That, for me, is very important.”
Ian Woosnam, who has lifted The Ryder Cup as a player, vice-captain and Captain an amazing seven times, thinks the most recent edition once again highlighted the strength of the European side.
“A lot of work must have gone into the course setup,” the World Golf Hall of Fame Member said. “They made the fairways really narrow and had the ropes a long way back so that all of a sudden you had to hit it straight. Then the added pressure of the Americans feeling like they were going to win it because of their World Rankings and everything — it played into our hand.
“The European Team, which represents the European Tour, always feels like we’ve got something to prove and that we’ve got to beat them and show them what we’ve got.
“We’ve been doing it for the last 30 years, and I think just as importantly, we make sure we have fun doing it, which really means we are winning in both ways.”
The Farmfoods European Senior Masters runs from October 5-7 at Forest of Arden Hotel & Country Club and will feature an elite field complete with 14 different players who have represented Team Europe at The Ryder Cup through the years.
