It comes as completely no surprise with former victorious European Ryder Cup Captain Paul McGinley declared: “So all in all, it’s what we expected. It’s right out of the American playbook of what they do when they play at home, and they’ve been very successful doing it”.
The 2014 Gleneagles winning hero was commenting following the 2025 European team’s two-day visit earlier this week to the host venue for next week’s hosting of the 2025 Ryder Cup Cup.
Much has been written already about the famed Bethpage Park Black course while TourMiss has been fortunate to visit and tackle the Long Island golfing gem … See: http://www.golfbytourmiss.com/2016/08/bethpage-park-black-course-not-for-the-feint-of-heart
McGinley has added a latest chapter and comparing the Long Island golf course he tackled in missing the halfway cut at the 2002 US Open to the venue he also visited earlier this week, and meeting also with European Team captain Luke Donald and his men.
“The rough is not as penal as it would be in a US PGA or US Open that have been played there before,” said McGinley, who will be a key member of the NBC TV host coverage.
“The fairways are pretty generous at the moment, because they’re soft and, you know, they may firm up next week. We don’t know yet.
“Greens as well are pretty soft. They may firm up next week. We don’t know yet. Green speeds at the moment are probably running around 12; they’re probably moving up to about 13, and a couple of the tee boxes are moved up.
“The 17th is about 30 yards shorter than it was certainly for the US Open, when I played in 2002, and the first tee box has obviously been moved up about 35 or 40 yards in order to get the stand in behind the tee.
“So all in all, it’s what we expected. It’s right out of the American playbook of what they do when they play at home, and they’ve been very successful doing it, so why change, which is generally having rough that’s not too thick, trying to encourage a fast pace of low scoring. It’s been very successful in the past when they’ve played at home.”
As for Donald and his dozen European chargers there’s no getting away from the fact they face an Everest-like task competing in front of one of the fierciest sporting crowds on the planet if they are to retain the gleaming trophy.
“I think this is a society issue”, said McGinley in addressing the issue of New York crowd behaviour.
“Whether it’s the advent of social media or whatever, but there certainly seems to be a change in human behaviour, and people’s behaviour, certainly at sporting events, where people are a little bit more front-footed, a little bit more aggressive in their tone than they might have been in the past.
“We are aware that New York fans are very passionate about their sport and that it’s going to be the noisiest atmosphere that a Ryder Cup has ever had, and that includes some of the European venues.
“So we’re expecting that. We’re anticipating a lot of work behind the scenes in preparing the players for that atmosphere and trying to perform in that atmosphere.
“We’ve had some expert speakers in — I am not going to say who they are, but Luke will tell you that next week.
“We’ve taken a lot of advice from a lot of people who have performed in these arenas, and we feel we’re a very well-prepared team for what this huge challenge is going to be away from home.”
No matter, Europe knows how to win on US soil and with Donald the enormous benefit of presenting a team that boasts 10 players who won two years ago in Rome.
“It is a very small, tight-knit group,” McGinley said.
“They’ve all got five days off. They’ve all gone to different places, but we have asked them to stay on East Coast time, or as close to it as they can, which they’ve all done.
“Nobody’s returning to Europe for these five days, so we’re not having to deal with jet lag next week. We’ve never done that before for any away match we’ve had.”
