The clock is ticking before Europe’s Ryder Cup theory is tested in practice.
Captain Luke Donald and his team are famously meticulous, looking for every angle with which to gain an advantage.
In the moments after the triumph in Rome two years ago Rory McIlroy said: “Winning an away match in the Ryder Cup is the toughest task in golf right now – and we’re going to do it.”
The team were unanimous in calling for Donald to be retained for this year’s match in New York and the committee agreed.
Let’s take a look at what we know of Europe’s inner workings.
The difficulty of winning away
The men tasked with appointing the captain started with an acknowledgement of changing times. Between 1987 and 1999 there were seven matches and they were all tight with no more than two points in it.
In 2002 Europe won by three.
But since then eight of 10 matches have seen a winning margin of at least five points – and the home team has won 11 of the last 13.
Conclusion? A lot of work is needed.
Rookie away captains
That committee looked at the four captains who have won away for Europe: and two of them were not rookie captains (Tony Jacklin in 1987 and Bernard Gallacher in 1995).
In the European era rookie captains on American soil have a 0-for-7 record. The committee therefore agreed with the players: they re-appointed Donald.
Rookies on the road
Then Donald and his team, including stats man Edoardo Molinari and 2014 captain Paul McGinley, started to deep dive and they concluded that it’s not just rookie captains who struggle on the road – first time players do, too.
In the three home Ryder Cups five of 12 rookies won more than 50% of their points and 38 rookie matches reaped 20.5 points (54%).
In contrast, in the last three away Cups, just two of 10 rookies scored more than 50% of their points and only a total of 10.5 came from 32 matches at 33%.
But it’s worse than that because those five successful home rookies won 11 of 15 points and the rest won 9.5 of 23 (41%).
But away from home the two good rookies were stellar (6.5 points from 8) but the rest contributed a mere four points from 24 (17%).
Molinari wanted a qualification system that identified only the very best rookies and first-timers were up against it when seeking a wildcard.
On-course leaders
The team also identified the importance of on-course leadership in the sense that in the 21st century there has been a direct relationship between the result and the performance of the two teams’ top three players in the world rankings.
There have been 11 matches this century and the team whose top-three ranked performers outscore the opposition leading trio always win the Ryder Cup.
LIV muddies the issue this year. On world rankings it reduces the issue to Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele and Russell Henley versus McIlroy, Tommy Fleetwood and Bob MacIntyre.
If we used DataGolf rankings it would be Scheffler, Ben Griffin and Russell Henley versus McIlroy, Fleetwood and Jon Rahm.
Desensitisation
A team insider revealed to Golf365 that we will see many new aspects of team dynamic in the next few days and the importance of performing under pressure up against an away crowd is a key part of that.
Within minutes of him saying as much McIlroy revealed that the team was using Virtual Reality headsets to desensitise themselves ahead of being bombarded by the invective of the New York galleries.
“We’re doing everything we can to best prepare ourselves for what it’s going to be like,” he said, adding: “But you can wear all the VR headsets you want, once the first tee comes on Friday, it’s real and you just have to deal with whatever is going on.”
The headsets simulate the hostile sights and sounds of the New York galleries.
“They put abuse on there for us,” McIlroy said. “They personalise it and they said, how far do you want this to go? And I said, go as far as you want.”
Owning the situation
McIlroy also hinted at a further factor: the players need to take responsibility in the face of the abuse. He recalled an incident at Hazeltine in 2016 when he reacted badly to a comment.
“I understand that I need to do a better job of putting the blinkers on and not hearing,” he said. “It wasn’t a great comment, but I probably shouldn’t have reacted to it.”
The Bethpage Black recce
The team departed London for New York on Sunday night to practice on Monday and Tuesday.
The plan was for nine holes one day, 18 holes another and then a journey into Manhattan on the final night.
Donald said the team won’t be thinking of the city during the match so it was important to soak it up a little before hand.
In-between time
Donald asked only that no-one return to Europe: he doesn’t want anyone jet lagged.
Some players will go home if they live in the States, others will stay around New York. Some are pairing up, others going their own way.
Robert MacIntyre is playing Shinnecock Hills and Aronimink – they are big courses like Bethpage, but also next year’s major venues.
Read next: The European Ryder Cup team Luke Donald really should have picked
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