The Details Matter for Team Europe

You could spend the next two years trying to understand what made the European Ryder Cup team capable of pulling off one of the biggest upsets in the history of this event at Bethpage this week — and undoubtedly it’s a subject that will be exhausted by a lot of smart people during that time — but I’m convinced the answer might be best explained by something as simple as shampoo and beds.

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When Luke Donald and his team checked into the Garden City Hotel on Long Island this week, they didn’t love the linens. They didn’t love the shampoo in the showers, and they didn’t love that a small sliver of light from the hallways was visible through the doors. So they made changes.

They brought in new beds so the players could get better rest. They got something to block out the light from the hallway. They put shampoo (that costs $45 a bottle) in the players’ showers. They knew the players would love it.  

“Le Labo, if anyone was wondering,” said Rory McIlroy. “Really, really nice.”

It’s not like the shampoo really made a difference. Not by itself, anyway. But when Donald shared that story in the winner’s press conference Sunday night, he used it as an example of how obsessed he was with finding ways to give Europe even the tiniest advantage. Every day, he tried to find something. Donald spent two years thinking about this stuff, obsessing over it, whether it was lodging, travel, pairings, or preparation. He built relationships with his players, earned their trust, and asked them to give everything to the team and leave their egos behind.  

He even had a silhouette of Seve Ballesteros sewn to the inside of their shirts, right near their heart. He didn’t treat anything — literally anything — as an afterthought.

“I really have committed myself to this job because I feel I owe it to the players and I owe it to the Ryder Cup which has been so special to me. I've had so many incredible experiences,” Donald said Sunday night. “I've had to kind of put my own game a little bit to the side, and every day I'm trying to think about things that could help us, come up with different things that might just give us a little edge.”

Keegan Bradley is going to receive a fair share of criticism for some of the decisions he made this week, and he certainly deserves some of it. He even acknowledged it in his own press conference. “I definitely feel I made a few mistakes there,” Bradley said. “I’ve got to take responsibility for this outcome for sure.”

Bradley, however, wasn’t set up for success the way Donald was. He’s still trying to be an active PGA Tour player, and couldn’t treat it like a full-time job. He even spent much of the year trying to make the team. The PGA of America asked him to do the gig because the organization clearly doesn’t grasp how much attention to detail contributes to Europe’s success.

Europe isn’t going to win every Ryder Cup going forward. America will have cycles when it has an obvious talent advantage, and will overwhelm the small edge in strategy at home, just like at Whistling Straits. But the United States is never going to win in Europe until it realizes this isn't an exhibition to the Europeans. This is about legacy and history and memories.

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“Ryder Cup weeks are the best weeks of our lives,” Donald said. “We talk about this all the time. Those individual accolades are fun. Individually, we want to achieve as much as we can. Rory has achieved so much in the game. His place in history is set. But I think those weeks we spend together are the ones we remember the most and the ones we cherish the most because of the time we get to spend with each other. That's a big part of my captaincy is to create an environment where these guys are having the best weeks of their lives, honestly. We'll always remember this. We'll always go down in history.”

As Donald was talking, McIlroy started to get emotional. By the time Donald had finished, McIlroy had tears in his eyes. So did several other Europeans.

Don’t let anyone tell you Europe won this week because they just made more putts.