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OUT of the rough |
Ryder Cup captain a teacher
The last 10 Ryder Cup matches have disproved the theory that the captain’s role is largely ceremonial.
The old maxim was that you’re simply asking the best players on the planet to just play their game, as opposed to asking 12 promising junior players to perform at their best in an international competition.
When a long-ago manager of the New York Yankees was hailed as a genius, he laughed. “That’s right,” he said, “I’m a genius. I write down names like Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig and tell ’em to play well and have fun, and when they win, I’m a brilliant guy.” Sometimes the winning Ryder Cup captain really does lend a series of thoughtful touches that are as meaningful to victory as a perfectly timed string of winning birdies.
England’s Tony Jacklin is so revered as the fellow who in 1983 invented the modern version of the Ryder Cup that it’s become routine to forget his brilliance as a player. From his Open Championship victory at Royal Lytham and St. Anne’s in 1969 through his U.S. Open win at Interlachen in 1970, no one played better golf than Tony Jacklin.
Although Jack Nicklaus conceded the 2 footer to him in the ’69 Ryder Cup matches to halve their individual match and the matches as a whole, it was not a putt the then-current Open champ would have feared attempting.
How delicious it must have been for Jacklin to wake up in the morning as the reigning U.S. and British Open champion with the proof sitting on his mantel shelf. “A quite pleasant start to the day,” he happily recalls. Eleven-time major champion Walter Hagen said, “Any player can win an Open; it takes a great player to do it twice.” Walter waited, of course, until he won his second Open in 1919 to make his major point.
When Jacklin agreed to first captain the European side in 1983, he made changes that made his team feel psychologically equal to the American squad rather than the 2-down feeling on the first tee they previously had. He had insisted upon quality bags and shoes for his men and threw out the plastic ones his players once had handed down. He carefully selected the best clothing, the classiest cashmere sweaters. The idea of a team meeting room instead of meeting in someone’s room was his.
The best food and variety were now always available, and the team room became a place to bond, a place where players wanted to be. When the European Tour travels in Europe, players stay in the same hotels and share food at the restaurant that has the best steak. Community and camaraderie were not new concepts to the European players, but the space to revel in it was new to the European Ryder Cup Team.
How did Jacklin handle a tired or cranky star? When the great Bernhard Langer asked Jacklin for a Saturday afternoon off in one of the four matches he captained in the ’80s, Jacklin told him that a tired Langer was superior to the alternative — and Langer visibly grew in stature, played and won the afternoon match.
When Seve Ballesteros was the best player on the planet in 1983, he wondered why he should have to play father to a younger player, why he should suggest clubs to chip with and lines to putt on. When Jacklin told Ballesteros he was in fact the father, that he was there to be the teacher, and asked if this was a problem for him, the reaction was, “Problem? For me there is no problem.” And so Ballesteros and young Paul Way were a sensational pairing.
The captain can’t teach the players how to play but he can quietly perform subtle gestures that make them feel ready to play their best.
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