It is two weeks until Team Europe walk into the storm of an away Ryder Cup, and all is calm. The players are gathered for the BMW PGA Championship here at Wentworth, and it is an apt choice for a little peace: the long driveway winds through mature beech trees and giant oaks hiding sleepy mansions on either side before opening out onto the course, which sprawls over hundreds of acres of Surrey heathland.
The privacy and grandeur of the Wentworth Estate evidently still hold great allure for the rich and famous. Harry Kane commissioned a family home on the estate, and he will soon have a new neighbour when Rory McIlroy’s £9m property is finished, which will act as his family’s summer escape from the Florida heat.
It is a long way from Bethpage Black, the public New York golf course that will stage a raucous Ryder Cup later this month. McIlroy, Tommy Fleetwood and the rest will be greeted like heroes here, which is hardly a simulation for New Yorkers bellowing in their ears, but perhaps nothing can prepare a player for that. Instead they will focus on bonding when 11 of Team Europe’s 12 players convene for the first time since Luke Donald announced his captain’s picks, sharing a dinner together on Tuesday night. Only one is absent, Sepp Straka, at home with his wife in Alabama after the birth of their second child.
The DP World Tour prefers the BMW PGA Championship to stand as a prestigious event in its own right, but it inevitably becomes engulfed in talk of the Ryder Cup. Players will fine tune their games, while organisers will group some together over the opening two rounds, which might give some clues as to whether Donald is considering any fresh pairings.
“[This week is a chance to] spend some time with teammates,” said McIlroy. “Whether that’s tonight at dinner or, depending what the pairings are Thursday and Friday, I’ll probably get to spend some time with a couple of them on the golf course. But first and foremost I want to play well because confidence-wise I want to be in the right state of mind going into the Ryder Cup.”
At Wentworth two years ago, there was a sense of mystery about Europe before the Ryder Cup in Rome. The team had been ripped up and rebuilt since their humiliation at Whistling Straits, and Donald was parachuted in as captain after Henrik Stenson defected to LIV Golf. There was plenty of excitement but doubt too: one of Donald’s picks, Ludvig Aberg, had not yet even played a major.
This time there is more stability. Donald goes to New York with 11 of the 12 players who won 16½-11½ in Rome and the only one missing, Nicolai Hojgaard, has been replaced by his twin brother Rasmus, who qualified automatically after a strong year on both sides of the Atlantic. Genetically, Team Europe are essentially unchanged.
“The good thing about Rasmus is he really was a part of our team last time in Rome,” McIlroy pointed out. “Obviously his brother played, but Rasmus was part of the backroom team so he was around the team for the entire week. It will be his first time playing but he’s at least got experience in terms of what the cadence of the week is like.
“He knows his potential and how good he is. He qualified for the Ryder Cup Team which is a hard thing to do. In terms of making him feel comfortable, we all walk into that team room as equals. He needs to see himself on the same level as Jon Rahm, myself or anyone else. We are just one of 12.”
There have been sniggers on the other side of the Atlantic at the idea of Donald’s “boys’ club”, a team closed off to outsiders with no room for rookies who impressed this season, such as Cornish player Harry Hall, who made a strong statistical case for being among the top 12 European players. But only Hojgaard forced himself in among automatic picks. Everyone else left room for doubt, and Donald judged that the best strategy was to rekindle the spirit of Rome.
That work starts here at Wentworth. “There are things in my game I want to tidy up, regardless of what I’ve just won,” said McIlroy, fresh off his dramatic play-off victory at the Irish Open. Next week, Europe’s players will fly to Bethpage Black for a scouting mission around the notoriously difficult course, before most players settle nearby ahead of the main event, which begins on Friday 26 September.
It may be largely the same European team as Rome but, two years on, a lot has changed. Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton have been playing LIV Golf. McIlroy has become a grand slam winner, Tommy Fleetwood a Tour winner, while Ludvig Aberg and Bob McIntyre have grown into major contenders. Matt Fitzpatrick has bloomed into form over recent weeks, looking like a player reborn.
“Bob has turned himself into one of the best players in the world, a really gritty competitor,” said McIlroy. “Probably we weren’t even talking about Ludwig at that time because he was still in college. You could make an argument that the 12 guys that we have going to New York are more accomplished golfers than they were two years ago when most of us were in Rome.”
Winning an away Ryder Cup is one of the hardest feats in sport, so said McIlroy amid the celebrations in Rome, when his mind immediately turned to Bethpage. He was part of the Miracle of Medinah in 2012, the last time it was achieved. In the calm surrounds of Wentworth, soon to be his home course, rebuilding their bonds is the first step on the road to another famous victory.
“History would tell you it’s very difficult,” McIlroy said. “There’s a reason that in the last decade each Ryder Cup has gone to the home team. It would obviously be great to bring the Ryder Cup back to these shores … We have a massive opportunity to do something that not a lot of Ryder Cup teams can say they have done.
“I think we all know it’s going to be very, very difficult, and you’re not just playing 12 American golfers, you’re also trying to get past the crowd. But I think it’s a wonderful opportunity. I don’t want to speak on behalf of everyone that’s on the team but I would assume that we are all very, very excited for that opportunity.”
