The retrospective narrative of any Ryder Cup captaincy tends to arrive in the form of black and white. Closer scrutiny of several stagings of the biennial battle between Europe and the USA reminds us only that such analysis is unwise.
Take the case of Davis Love III. Some onlookers have reacted with astonishment that one of the key victims of Europe’s “Miracle at Medinah” will be given yet another captain’s stint when the Americans host Darren Clarke and his team next year. The basis for this surprise is simple; because the USA team ultimately failed on that fateful Sunday in Illinois, Love should carry the can. José María Olazábal, the European captain of that time, should therefore be lauded as some kind of master golfing tactician, having pulled off one of the finest comebacks in sport.
The reality is somewhat different. It generally is in Ryder Cups, where Sunday singles performances can so often mean the difference between winning and losing. What impact a captain has by this stage is open to debate; it certainly isn’t valid to suggest a stunning and unforeseen European resurgence, as transpired at Medinah, can somehow be blamed on Love. He was a victim, not the perpetrator.
Put another way, the pain of defeat in that instance can surely only inspire Love by the time he reaches Hazeltine in September 2016. One glance at him in the immediate Medinah aftermath confirmed how much he had been hurt by what so rapidly unfolded.
Some will have you believe that Europe can no longer do any wrong and the USA set-up, which included the formulation of a Ryder Cup taskforce in recent months, has lurched towards the shambolic. This is exaggerated, pompous nonsense from a European standpoint, save the decision to allow Tom Watson to lead his country at Gleneagles, which always looked a poor one. Watson cannot possibly engage with the golfers of this era as well as others, including Love, can. Even then, Europe had everything else going for them last September including, rather importantly, the better team.
In 2012 and 2010 – on the latter occasion, again all important factors were in Europe’s favour – the USA were defeated by only a point. In 2008, the USA swaggered to victory against Nick Faldo’s Europe at Valhalla. Faldo offered possibly the best example that while captaincy cannot win a Ryder Cup, it can play a key part in losing it – but this was exception rather than rule.
Fast forward to next time around and the USA, with home advantage and an emerging batch of exciting players to call upon, are a better bet to win than many give them credit for. The likely absence of Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson in a playing capacity is also pertinent and potentially useful to the hosts, given the inevitable sway held by that pair, either individually or together. Their presence cannot always be classed as positive, as history tells us.
In the specific context of Love, he had quite clearly outshone Olazábal for two of three full days. The Spaniard did not use his full team particularly impressively, he was overly emotional and was only minutes away from a complete disaster when Rory McIlroy misunderstood a tee time. That incident may have been subsequently laughed off but it reflected very poorly on what Olazábal was presiding over.
Love’s wildcard selection of Dustin Johnson proved a masterstroke; two other, experienced picks in the form of Jim Furyk and Steve Stricker were among those not to prove as reliable when the heat was on. However, is such weakness, as displayed by many others under pressure, really the captain’s fault? Football managers routinely carry the can for defeats but they aren’t always to blame and that is with a far higher level of influence than Ryder Cup captains have.
The elephant in this room surrounds why Fred Couples has not been given the role assigned to Love, one of his close friends. Couples had been the hot favourite to be captain, owing both to his popularity and success in the Presidents Cup. That event, it should be noted, produces nothing like the intensity of a Ryder Cup.
Perhaps ESPN’s golf correspondent Bob Harig summed it up best with the admission that Couples is “not viewed as the kind of captain who buys into all the ancillary nonsense that comes with the job”. In other words, Love’s attention to and appetite for detail sets him apart but his position as part of the taskforce has prompted inevitable intrigue as to why Couples was overlooked once again. It has emerged, though, that Love was the first choice of several leading players, many of whom sat on the taskforce; isn’t this the very message Europe’s selectors are commonly praised for heeding from the people who matter most?
Couples himself, typically, has shrugged off any notion of controversy. It would be a shock if he isn’t part of the backroom team in Minnesota. In offering an element of continuity, Love himself is expected to be a vice-captain when the USA take on Europe in France in 2018.
Love is a major champion, a winner 19 more times on the PGA Tour and a golfer who competed six times in the Ryder Cup. He is not going to offend anybody but neither is he some sort of soft option. Dismissing him as not a smart one, either, seems grossly unfair. The Ryder cup itself, let alone the USA, may benefit if Love proves a few people wrong.
