YOU can pay them a fiver to pull the shirt on or you can hand them £500,000
But you can’t buy what Luke Donald got out his golfing warriors over the weekend.
The absolute trust in the skipper. The total faith in each other. The responsibility every man took on his own shoulders.
Priceless, all of it.
It was a masterclass in why winning is its own reason – and in why, for me at least, the Yanks blew it the minute they started demanding fortunes to turn up.
By bargaining for their half a million dollars each, I believe Keegan Bradley‘s men took their eye off the situation, off what this event is all about.
golf in class
McIlroy’s wife ‘in tears’ over fan abuse & being ‘hit by drink’ at Ryder Cup
TOTE’S WORTH IT
Get £40 in free bets and bonuses when you stake £10 on football with Tote
They forgot that the Ryder Cup isn’t about what you can make for putting the ball in the hole. It’s about what putting the ball in the hole MEANS – and every swing, every pitch, every putt the Europeans made to you that they understood this so much better than their opponents.
Perfect example? Late on Saturday night, Justin Rose is about to putt when an American caddie wanders into his eyeline. Rose politely asks him to move away, then when the caddie looms over him again, he makes his point a little less politely.
When they’re then walking off the green, Bryson DeChambeau decides to start a barney with Rose – and in an instant, the European veteran’s partner Tommy Fleetwood was at his shoulder offering handlers.
DeChambeau’s partner, world No1 Scotty Scheffler? He stayed well out of the way.
Right there, we saw a European team who could look to either side and see somebody who had their back. And whether we’re Ryder Cup golfers or Champions League footballers, Saturday morning volleyball players, officer workers or whatever else, that’s what a successful team is.
On Friday, I was fortunate enough to be talking about teamwork to the women of Scotland’s only professional basketball outfit, Caledonia Gladiators, over at the impressive Playsport complex in East Kilbride.
Pretty much at the same time, 14 of my friends from our Macmillan Cancer Support fundraising group were finishing a 600-plus mile cycle from Geneva to Nice that had seen them climb something like 18,000 feet of mountain and push themselves to the absolute limit physically and mentally.
I talked about how our team has got stronger across across its 22 years and told a story that will live with me forever, one from 2019 when we were cycling over the Pyrenees, a week that saw us take on about a dozen Tour de France peaks and when it soon struck me that I was seriously out of my depth.
On the morning when we were riding out towards the foot of the mighty Col de Tourmalet and its 6,500 of constant hairpin bends, I was seriously doubting myself when my pal Linda McDowall cycled alongside and said: ‘I’m going to stay with you today, I’ll help you get there.’
And she did, every inch of the way, until we’d both turned the final bend and been welcomed by our cheering muckers. Without such a wonderful team-mate at my side, I’d never have made it.
Now look at football teams who are in trouble just now; Aberdeen, Rangers, an off-form Celtic, Manchester United, the big headline under-achievers.
What you see in all of them is that not everyone is there for each other. People are looking round to see who’s going to dig them out, rather than saying: “I’ll do this, I’m here for my pal.”
I don’t see that desire in Rangers, whose manager Russell Martin was pilloried yet again by fans despite a last-gasp win at Livi on Sunday.
I certainly don’t see it in Aberdeen. There are times that I don’t see it in Celtic. I watched Man United Saturday, didn’t see an ounce of it there.
Thelin’s latest debacle, at Fir Park on Saturday night, was the perfect example of talk being cheap, because whatever he told his players to do, they clearly weren’t listening.
They weren’t following his orders. They made dreadful decisions in possession, weren’t there for each other when the game was on the line. That’s why they’re bottom of the league, with just one point and not a single goal.
Even Celtic, for all their success, have had a dramatic fall-off this calendar year. The connection between players, the almost telepathic understanding, that you were seeing seven or eight months ago simply isn’t there enough enough.
As for Man Utd at Brentford on Saturday? Imposters. The perfect reminder that hiking a guy’s wages to two and three hundred grand a week doesn’t guarantee he’ll up his effort levels or take extra responsibility.
So what a joy to watch the performance our Ryder Cup heroes put in, the partnerships they created, how they were each other’s minders, how they always had an arm round the shoulder for a mate who fluffed a shot, how they ran to hug him when a 25-footer dropped.
That attitude was worth all the gold in the world.
The Yanks? As they kept throwing one punch and taking three on the chin in return, their $500,000 for the week meant nothing. Their world rankings and the Majors on their mantelpieces didn’t count for a jot.
When they were up against it – and in this they were no different from Rangers, Aberdeen, Man Utd and more – they didn’t try to sort things by helping out the next guy, who’d help the next guy, who’d help the next.
Sadly, they instead came across as the embodiment of the America the current president is creating; one where is every man for himself and where anyone who’s struggling is on their own.
And all the while, Europe were scrapping tooth and nail for each other. They wanted victory for each other as much as they wanted it for themselves – and they sure as hell didn’t need it for some big sack of gold.
Tell you what, though. Martin, Thelin and Ruben Amorim would all pay DeChambeau’s pay-poke to get a swatch at Luke Donald’s playbook.
They’d give their right arm to know he created that unbeatable bond between his men, how he not only trained them shut out the negative noise but to feed off it, how they cleared their minds of chaos and saw nothing but the next shot in front of them.
It was such a genius display of man-management.
Read more on the Scottish Sun
‘NEVER EXPECTED THAT!’
Rangers hero’s Strictly Come Dancing debut leaves teammates stunned
A LONG SHOT
Key figure behind doomed Ross McGill & Daniels gang war ‘truce talks’ revealed
It was such a a thrilling performance to sit back and watch unfold.
It must have been a hundred times more so to be part of.
Keep up to date with ALL the latest news and transfers at the Scottish Sun football page
