Victorious Ryder Cup Thomas Bjorn delivered the likes of Phil Mickelson a subtle message revealing the golf course that hosted the 2018 French Open was prepared no different three months later for the staging of the Ryder Cup.

Only one American player, and that was Justin Thomas, elected to contest the 2018 French Open and while Bjorn defended other likely members of the USA Team in not electing to seek an invitation for the tournament won by Alex Noren he had a message for Mickelson and company who has since criticised the set-up of the host Le National course.

“I was not surprised Justin Thomas was the only on to play the French Open as everyone is so busy sticking to a playing schedule and then you can put a lot of a golf course but then that is why you play practice rounds but then it just didn’t work out for them this time around,” said Bjorn.

The victorious European Ryder Cup team (Photo – European Tour)

“Was that down to the golf course and the USA team not having played the golf course that many times before?

“Well, I’m not so sure about that as I would like to give our guys credit for the way they played and what they did during the week, and not so much take away from them any talk about the course set-up.

“As a group of guys I have to go back to 2004 to find a European Team that played just as equally to the task and the team that played under (Bernhard) Langer in Detroit was unbelievable, and I think our team was extremely strong in the way they played that week.”

And while Bjorn revealed the course had not been ‘tricked-up’ to suit the Europeans, he spoke also of his long-time fondness for the Le National course that first hosted the French Open in 1991.

“I thought Le National was just made to host a Ryder Cup with the first and second and those last four holes,” said Bjorn.

“You could just see so much from the one spot and it made for that great moment of teeing-off of what a Ryder Cup is about and it made it very special.

“Le National is a very unique venue but that doesn’t mean that every Ryder Cup is not great as they are.

“Going forward you don’t want to duplicate France so when you go to Whistling Straits and when you go to Rome in 2022, you want to create your own Ryder Cup venue and not duplicate what was in France.”