Donald: “We Created A Great Ryder Cup Culture & That Will Be My Main 2025 Approach”.

2 years ago by Comments Off on Donald: “We Created A Great Ryder Cup Culture & That Will Be My Main 2025 Approach”.

Double European Ryder Cup captain Luke Donald, while saying it would be ‘great’ if Tiger Woods is appointed rival 2025 US Captain, believes the ‘culture’ created under his leadership in Rome will put his European Team in good stead heading to Bethpage Park.

Donald, 45, revealed a decision to remain after leading Europe to a 16½ – 11½ victory against the United States at Marco Simone Golf and Country Club in Rome.

He becomes Europe’s first repeat Captain since Bernard Gallacher performed the role in three consecutive Ryder Cups, in 1991, 1993 and 1995.

And Donald will be aiming to become only the second captain to lead Europe to victories both home and away, following Tony Jacklin who achieved the double at Muirfield Village in Ohio in 1987, retaining the Ryder Cup following his team’s victory two years previously at The Belfry, in England, in 1985.

“We created a great culture and that will obviously be my number one priority, is to continue that and continue that into Bethpage,” he said.

“I think playing away brings different approaches and different challenges. Again, you’re going to have to deal with the crowd, you’re going to have to deal with the U.S. setting up the golf course. There’s things that we had control of that we certainly don’t have control of this time.

“I’ve got a lot of time to kind of get my head around all those things. But yeah, there will be a different approach. I think just the way I’ve even done this in my individual career, you know, it’s always good to have that growth mindset.

“You always want to figure out how you can be better, how you can improve, and these next 22 months will be me trying to figure out that way to give ourselves a better chance to win away from home, which is very difficult.

“Anytime you have a bit more time, you can space probably the workload over the 22 months I have now instead of 14. But, you know, again, I think we created a great culture in 2023.

“The players were certainly in a great spirit and a great place, I think, to be successful. Again, my idea is to continue that culture, but there will be different approaches needed for an away match”.

With the 2025 European captain now confirmed Donald was asked his thougths whether he thinks Woods, and only returning to competiton this week, could be the opposing home captain, and with Woods yesterday in the Bahamas side-stepping any talk of taking over from Zach Johnson.

“Well, the desire to win, whoever the captain is, is strong so, yeah, obviously, Tiger’s been mentioned as a possible candidate and we’ll have to wait and see”, said Donald.

“If it’s him great, if it’s someone else, great.

“I’ve got to play a lot of times with Tiger in my career and I have great admiration for what he’s done, what he’s done in the game.

“You would think he was going to be a Ryder Cup captain at some point and if it’s this time, great, if it’s another time, great, but, again, it’s not really my focus.

“Again, it’s something a little bit out of my control, so I’m not really trying to think about it and once it happens, then we’ll address it. But if it’s Tiger or someone else, again, I’m looking forward to the challenge of being captain once more.

“In the meantime, my role is to try and, again, start the preparations and try and figure out the best opportunity for us to be successful again come September in 2025 in New York. So that’s really my focus”.

 



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