2014 Ryder Cup:There comes a time in a man's life when he should be above all of this. The hoping, the waiting, the thump-a-dump of a heart that feels like it's loud enough for everyone to hear.
These men are millionaires, they’ve had their careers and then some. Surely now should be the time for good wine, old yarns and no hassles. But no, they want to be the next Ryder Cup captain, the one role in golf capable of turning middle-aged men into nervy kids at a school disco.
The announcement will come tomorrow when either Paul McGinley or Colin Montgomerie will be invited to pull Excalibur from the rock. Or maybe there remains the slimmest of possibilities that Darren Clarke will.
You wouldn’t feel comfortable ruling anything out at this point, not after a race that wasn’t supposed to be a race at all but somehow turned into a bunch finish just as the line approached.
Up until the middle of last week, it was a straight contest between McGinley and Clarke but then, with all the who-me modesty of an old-ham director turning up for one last turn at the Tony awards, Monty got in the mix. Not 48 hours later, Clarke more or less removed himself from said mix, announcing – presumably on the back of inside information – that he felt that “this may not be my time”.
McGinley, after months of making the running, has kept the head down as the day has drawn near but he must be coming into this week wondering to himself how it has come to this.
Because when all came to all, this was supposed to be a pretty straightforward affair. As far back as last April, McGinley looked to have the whole show sown up. His main opposition for the role was always assumed to be Clarke – and Clarke only – so when he revealed that his friend and former next-door neighbour had told him privately that he was stepping aside, it looked like the table had been set for him.
“Clarkey is not going for 2014,” he said all of nine months ago. “He has given his support to me. That helps. Everything helps. It’s pretty odds-on that Darren is going to be captain in 2016. By all accounts, Darren is going to be nailed on for 2016 after winning the Open Championship.
“He sent me a hand written letter after the Seve Trophy last year saying how much he enjoyed me being captain, how much I surprised him by how good I was and that beyond doubt, I would have his full support for 2014.”
For pretty much the only time in two years, McGinley forgot the first rule of being Ryder Cup captain. You do not talk about being Ryder Cup captain, not until they stitch your name into the press release. All the same, McGinley’s sin was a venial one, easily forgiven. After all, Clarke’s apparent removal from the picture looked to have left the way clear for him to take up a job for which he was the natural choice.
Groundwork
No potential Ryder Cup captain has ever laid the amount of groundwork or paid the amount of dues McGinley has in preparation for the job. His playing career might not be as stellar as either Clarke’s or Montgomerie’s but when it comes to captaincy, McGinley has taken all the right steps and made all the right moves. Twice the winning captain of the GBI Seve Trophy team, twice a vice-captain on successful Ryder Cup teams under Montgomerie and Jose Maria Olazabal.
He’s never lost a Ryder Cup as a player or a vice-captain and Europe’s only defeat in the last six matches came in 2008 when he wasn’t involved.
Choosing the European Ryder Cup captain is not unlike choosing a pope. It’s 15 men in a room – the Tournament Players Committee, to give them their full title – and the door stays closed until a name emerges. One of the more intriguing aspects to this go-round is the fact that three of the 15 members of the committee are the men who have had their name in the hat.
If we take it that Clarke is definitely out of the race, that will mean McGinley and Montgomerie having to leave the room while the captaincy is being decided.
As it happens, that will only leave 11 to tease it out, as Miguel Angel Jimenez is laid up with a broken leg after a skiing accident and Robert Karlsson won’t be in Abu Dhabi either. Committee chairman Thomas Bjorn will only vote if there is a deadlock. So effectively, it comes down to 10 men. They are Clarke, Felipe Aguilar, Paul Casey, Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano, Joakim Haeggman, David Howell, Rafael Jacquelin, Peter Lawrie, Francesco Molinari and Henrik Stenson.
Molinari is the only member of the winning 2012 team who will be in the room, which could count against McGinley as over half of that team – including Rory McIlroy and Luke Donald – have already declared their support for him and he could do with their voices on his side. Of the others on the committee, Stenson is firmly in the Montgomerie camp.
Not only did he propose the Scot for the job at the last minute in 2010, he also took it upon himself last week to indirectly tell McGinley to suck it up if he didn’t make the cut this time around.
“Whether Gleneagles is Paul’s only chance, I am not sure,” said Stenson. “If you have been a vice-captain it’s important you accept that reward and not be disappointed if you then are not appointed captain. There are a lot of other great European players who have not been appointed Ryder Cup captain.”
All of which seemed a fairly heavy hint from a man on the inside that a job that looked McGinley’s for the taking last summer could now be slipping from him. Two things had changed in the meantime, neither of which reflected especially well on Clarke. The first was the rumour that was leaked in the wake of the win at Medinah that Clarke had been chosen for the job.
Out of the blue, Pádraig Harrington came out and said: “I believe that the inside track is that Darren Clarke is going to get it.”
Within days, there were reports in the English press unofficially confirming that it had been offered to him and quoting Lee Westwood saying Clarke’s major title gave him the edge over McGinley.
Clarke, for his part, took to Twitter to deny that anything had been locked down. “To clarify, I have not been offered the Ryder Cup captaincy. It’s not decided by the committee until January. Would be a huge honour if asked.”
It was a reasonable stab at calming the waters but still a long way removed from the hand-written letter he had sent McGinley just a year previously. So much for giving him his full support.
The second fly in the McGinley ointment came with the naming of Tom Watson as the American captain just before Christmas. In and of itself, this didn’t need to be a big deal for the European side, yet for whatever reason Clarke was moved to muse aloud on what it might mean.
“Maybe we have to have a look and consider other people as well,” he said. “Whoever it is standing on that stage opposite Tom Watson needs a huge presence. We seriously need the right man for the job. We do have an (unwritten) rule where we don’t ask anybody to do it again, but we might have to look at that.” It didn’t take a genius to work out who he was referring to.
Got away with it
While Montgomerie was the greatest Ryder Cup player of his era, as a captain he just about got away with it in Celtic Manor and no more. Had Graeme McDowell not dug in on that Monday to tidy up the last match against Hunter Mahan, Monty would have overseen the first defeat for Europe on home soil since 1993.
As it was, they won by that single point. McDowell himself explained afterwards that the idea of sending him out last in the order was in fact heavily influenced by McGinley. Monty was the one who had the final say but McGinley was the one who had initially taken McDowell’s temperature on the idea.
Montgomerie is five months short of his 50th birthday and is itching to get out and play on the Seniors Tour. As former captain Bernard Gallacher pointed out over the weekend, a captain who isn’t around the players week to week on the European or PGA tour is straight away at a disadvantage.
“I just don’t see the thinking with Colin,” he said. “He will very quickly become out of touch with the players on the main tour. What message would that send to the other worthy candidates who are queuing up for the job, having earned their right to the captaincy just as much as Colin?”
This is the same Montgomerie, remember, who with the fizz still fresh in the victory champagne at Celtic Manor swore off the job for life.
“I would just say,” he said at the winners’ press conference, “that this is a one-time hit. I’m delighted that Europe have won this trophy but I will not be doing this again, I can assure you.”
Last week in South Africa and in the wake of Clarke’s line about maybe having to look at the unwritten rule about not asking anyone for a second time, Montgomerie could barely contain himself. “I thought it was between Darren and Paul until Darren said something, then my name was mentioned. I’ve never canvassed, as I didn’t last time. I’ve not spoken to anybody about this. But I’ve always felt that if I was asked I would do it and that’s still the case.”
But enough, enough. Tomorrow comes and it all ends. After a couple of days of doubt near the end of last week, McGinley has hardened in the betting over the weekend and we’re back where we started. It’s his to lose again.
As it should have been all along.
Tale of the Tape . . .
Paul McGinley
Age: 46
Tournament wins: 4
Ryder Cup record: Played 3, won 3 (2002-06); 9 matches, 4 points; Unbeaten in singles play
Captaincy experience: Twice captained GBI teams to victory in the Seve Trophy
Colin Montgomerie
Age: 49
Tournament wins: 32
Ryder Cup record: Played 8, won 5 (1991-06); 36 matches, 23 points; Unbeaten in singles play
Captaincy experience: Captained Europe to victory in 2010 Ryder Cup; Captained GBI to three wins from four in the Seve Trophy.
Darren Clarke
Age: 44
Tournament wins: 14
Ryder Cup record: Played 5, won 4 (1997-2006); 20 matches, 11 points
Captaincy experience: None
