Past victorious Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley believes it’s important the LIV duo of Spaniard Jon Rahm and England’s Tyrrell Hatton remain in place on the 2025 European Ryder Cup automatic selection bus.
It was formally announced earlier this year by LIV that the double-major winning Rahm and the then 11-time pro winning Hatton had signed to join the breakaway golf league.
Both players were members of Luke Donald’s victorious 2023 European Team in Rome and with Hatton presently sitting in fifth place on the Bethpage Park selection standings, and helped by his recent Alfred Dunhill Links success while Rahm is lying 10th.
Paul McGinley believing it important LIV players Joh Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton remain on the ‘Ryder Cup selection bus’. Image SKY
However there may be some current uncertainty as to whether or not LIV players will be eligible to tee-up next September but with Europe’s victorious 2014 winning captain Paul McGinley insisting it is important the LIV pair ‘remain on the bus’ – the 2025 European Ryder Cup team bus.
And this advice coming from McGinley who was named in January earlier this year as being appointed as ‘Strategic Advisor’ on a four-man European Ryder Cup panel, also including Ian Ritchie a former CEO of both the RFU and also at the All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club along with Richard Scudamore a former Executive Chairman of the English Premier League and businessman Sir Damon Buffini, formed to enhance the commercial brand heading into the 45th hosting of the Ryder Cup next September.
“Firstly, it’s still the right decision for Europe that LIV-based players who qualify automatically for the Ryder Cup be chosen”, said McGinley in speaking on Indo Sport Podcast.
“Of course, we will have to wait and see how it plays out from a European Team context for the next few months. The two players are obviously Tyrrell and Jon.
“At this moment in time they have not paid their fines. They have appealed the fines and that means it’s on-going, so the Sport of Arbitration is still to hear that but then they are going to hear it, I don’t know.
“So, for the moment they’re on the bus and that is the right thing to do and that is the right thing over the next six to nine months, and if there is going to be a deal or not before the Ryder Cup”.
And while touching on McGinley’s appiontment to a special four-man Ryder Cup Advisory board he explained in more detail his round of this specially arranged and high-profile board.
“Our job on the board is to basically advise Guy Kinnings, CEO of the Tour and all those involved with the Ryder Cup, so my role in being asked onto the board was to oversee the team and make sure continuity is taking place, said McGinley.
“I was undertaking this role going into Rome so I communicated a lot with Luke going into Rome but then quietly and going on behind the scenes, and not to tell him what to do but making sure every scenario was addressed by him before he made his decison and that he was aware of every possible way it would play out.
“So, my job was to be that person and to make sure nothing was dropped mid-air.
“Then post the Ryder Cup in Rome we had a meeting and I had the strong view we are very good at home and this perception we’re not good playing a Ryder Cup is not true. If you look at the results America is excellent at home but they’re not good on the road.
“So, while I was so much involed in the template back home in Europe that we’ve got better with progressive Ryder’s with Thomas Bjorn being better than what I and then Luke was also slightly better in Rome than Thomas in France.
“Now that want me to team with Luke and devise ways to look at an away Ryder Cup match differently than we have in the past. Look at it through a different lens.
“There is still a long way to go to looking at how we go at approaching an away match and if there one aspect more than anything I would single out it is mentality. It is a very different animal playing away. I played in three – one way and two at home – and it’s just a very different mindset playing away.
“Luke and I were partners in Langer’s side playing away. We were out in the first match. We halved the match. Bernhard approached it different and we know America imploded that week when they had Mickelson and Tiger playing together. We got momentum early and kind of just kept going and going, and didn’t let them off the hook.
“I just learned so much that week from Langer and there is a lot of things he did in that away match, he would not done if it were a home match”.
AND McGinley revealed a Ryder Cup mistruth and that is the ‘home’ team does not get to select the pin positions at the Ryder Cup. No, since the 2016 Ryder Cup both teams are advised on the Monday of competition the pin positions for all 18 holes and each of the five rounds.
What they are not advised is what days those pin positions will be used.
“You may see also maybe not in this next Ryder Cup but in future Ryder Cup’s more of a coming together among the two sides in terms of course set-up, pin positions”, said McGinley.
Also read more of McGinley’s wonderful chat on Indo Sport Podcast here at GolfByTourMiss – Click on: http://www.golfbytourmiss.com/2024/10/mcginley-juggling-growing-business-while-bravely-dealing-with-the-pain-of-family-sadness/
