Paul McGinley reveals his secrets on how to win the Ryder Cup

Paul McGinley is considered one of Europe's most successful Ryder Cup captains.

How do you win the Ryder Cup? Paul McGinley captained Europe to glory at Gleneagles in 2014 and reveals the secrets he believes will help Luke Donald’s side to glory in Rome.

Ireland’s Paul McGinley is a Ryder Cup legend. When it comes to the biennial clash, he’s been there and done it all. Played on a winning team. Holed the winning putt. Won on American soil. Never tasted defeat as a player. Undefeated as a vice-captain. Dominant victory as the captain. The man ticks every box.

He’s widely regarded as one of Europe’s greatest-ever captains after masterminding a dominant victory over Tom Watson’s side in Scotland, with the 12 players showering his attention to detail, tactical nous, ability to motivate, and adaptability with universal praise.

Here the four-time DP World Tour winner turned broadcaster shares the secrets he learned as captain and how he believes Donald can lead his troops to another home victory at Marco Simone Golf and Country Club.

BE YOUR OWN MAN

There’s no one, single way of captaining in the Ryder Cup. To give you two examples, Olazabal and Monty were two very different captains before me. They saw things in a different way, but they both won. When you do what you see fit, you bring integrity to the table. That’s the biggest key to being a captain. You really must believe in yourself and have that authenticity and integrity of message.

PICK WISELY

I’m a believer in horses for courses. Players are suited to certain tests. The first meeting I had with the stats guys as captain, I asked them to trawl through the last 10 years of the Johnnie Walker Championship, played at Gleneagles, and identify three or four correlations as to who played well and what they did well that week. Was it big hitters?
Was it great putters? Did they just play par 5s well? Once I had that information, it really helped me to determine my pairings. Some players are suited or ill-suited to a certain type of golf course.

USE OTHER EVENTS TO YOUR ADVANTAGE

It’s well-documented that I could control the draws on the European Tour. Lesser known is that I was asking caddies what they thought about a player’s game and their strengths and weaknesses. As loyal as they are to their player, they always have their best interests in mind and are not as emotionally involved.

There are three or four different caddies in particular – really experienced ones – who I asked for views on their own player and others. Other captains played with certain individuals in the last few weeks of qualifying. The important thing is not to rely on just what the stats say. 

REPLICATE A DP WORLD TOUR SET-UP

We’re a European team and most players are members on the DP World Tour, where the courses are set up very differently compared to the PGA Tour. The fairways are a bit narrower, our rough is a bit higher and the greens are a bit slower.

As the home captain, you can have your say on the course set-up until the Monday before the Ryder Cup. But the most important conversation I had with David Garland, the European Tour’s Director of Operations, was a year or so before the Ryder Cup when I said I wanted a European Tour set-up. Nothing else. It was a case of keeping things simple, giving players what they were used to.

USE STATS SENSIBLY

In 2010 and 2012, under Monty and Jose Maria Olazabal, I was the stats guy. It was just basic research, and relied on using ShotLink and European Tour data. Players were ranked from one to 12 based on who was the best putter, who was the longest driver, who was the straightest driver. I also ranked players according to how they’d performed in teams before.

What I was conscious of, however, was that you can easily bamboozle and confuse players with data. As a result, data started and finished with me. It never reached the players, unless I wanted to use it in a conversation with them. Now data plays an even bigger part in shaping decisions, and helping the vice captains. 

We employed a full-time data team (strokeaverage.com). But every time I met them, I told them they had 10 minutes and one page. Anything more than that, you lose yourself in science. It wasn’t because I didn’t have time, I just wanted to focus on big details, rather than the minutiae. Again, it goes back to keeping it simple.

DEMOCRATIC LEADERSHIP STYLE WORKS BEST

It’s really important not to have the arrogance that you know everything as a captain. It’s important to keep your ears open. That doesn’t mean you have to communicate everything you get to the team. Far from it. You need to filter everything as a captain and then communicate very simply with the players. Players need clarity. They don’t need clutter.

KEEP THE TEAM MEETINGS CLEAR AND CONCISE

One of the biggest frustrations I had playing in the Ryder Cup was the uncertainty of when the team meeting was. People would guess and tell you different times, and it wasn’t very conducive to creating a relaxed environment.

When I was captain, there was a buffet from five until 10pm and people could have physio or do what they wanted in between, but everyone knew that there was a meeting at 9pm every night.

It was never longer than 10 minutes, because only so much applies to every player. Any other communication was done on a one-to-one level by pulling a chair across when they were having dinner or grabbing them in the corridor.

LET TEAM SPIRIT EVOLVE NATURALLY

The difficulty of being a Ryder Cup captain is that you only inherit them once every two years. I didn’t even have a chance to get them in the same room at the same time, so Luke will be delighted he’s had a chance to get them to Italy and have them all at Wentworth.

When I was captain, the FedEx Cup playoffs were on the week before, and they were getting prepared for that. I didn’t want to drag them away. The best way to prepare for the Ryder Cup is by ensuring they’re focused on their own games. Golf is an individual sport. They are not used to sitting down and fostering team spirit. They are born and bred as individuals, so trying to create a false team spirit isn’t right.

DON’T BE TOO PROUD TO ASK FOR HELP

The best captains I’ve had always asked players to share ideas about potential partnerships. What did they think? How did they think? It’s important to gather as many opinions as possible, because you might have missed something.

A great example was in 2004. Padraig and I were playing Tiger Woods and Davis Love III in the foursomes on Saturday afternoon at Oakland Hills in Detroit. We won 4&3, and we had a massive Irish-American crowd following us – people from Detroit, Chicago, Boston, New York.

On the way back to the hotel, we were all celebrating and Caroline Harrington said, “You know what, Bernhard Langer should put you both out in consecutive matches tomorrow because that huge Irish support can follow both matches and that noise can stay between you two. It can be a big European voice.”  

We thought it was a great idea and when we suggested it to Bernhard, he agreed. We went out at 11 and 12 the next day and won both games. So there was Caroline, forming the European strategy.

TRUST YOUR DEPUTIES

Vice captains never get much credit, but they are the Ryder Cup’s unsung heroes. The fifth captain is perhaps more important than ever. A vice-captain tends to follow each game, which leaves four guys back in the locker room on their own. Who’s managing them, making them feel a million dollars? Who’s making them feel part of what’s happening on the course?

In the afternoon matches at Gleneagles, we beat America 7-1 and a lot of that was because of the job Des Smyth did. I remember seeing Lee Westwood on the first tee and I knew straight away he
was ready to get that point on the board. It goes back to momentum, making sure everyone can hit the ground running. 

DRAW ON PAST EXPERIENCES

One thing that is rarely written about or talked about was that I had two goes at being a Seve Trophy captain. Twice we were massive underdogs, and twice we won. That’s where I got my confidence from. The stuff I tried out first time when I was captain had worked. The players got it, and my man-management and tactics were good. 

When the players stood up for me, like Rory, Luke Donald and Ian Poulter, at Gleneagles, it was because they had been in the team room with me as captain and had obviously seen something. That’s where my credibility came from. 

MANAGE THE TEAM, NOT THE EIGHT PLAYING

Picking the eight players to play is easy. It’s managing the four who are not on the course which is the hard bit. That’s why I coined the phrase ‘wave after wave of attack’. I got the concept from Gaelic football. There’s a team called Donegal. They won the (All Ireland) Championship in 2012 and their coach at the time was Jim McGuinness. His view was that if you start with your hard forwards and wear down the full-backs, you then bring on the nippy forwards and take advantage of the tired defense. So, while you don’t start with the leading 15, you finish with them.

When I became captain, that’s what I talked about in the team room. The eight guys who went out first weren’t necessarily the best in the team. They were the best suited to sit that part of the exam. I would tell them that there were loads of papers to go, and to win we needed to go through them together, wave after wave. It was a case of wearing down a very strong US team.

FAIL TO PREPARE, PREPARE TO FAIL

Team selection and strategy are very much score-dependent. I will give an example. Way before I was Ryder Cup captain, or even thinking about it, I met Nigel Mansell. He was still driving in F1 and Eddie Jordan suggested I should meet him. He’s since become a very good friend, but I remember he said something which was very insightful. Whenever he was on pole in a race, that night he’d go into a quiet room and start thinking about the following day and build a strategy. If he got a good start, he would take this position on the track, ready for the first corner. But if he got a slow start and the driver behind went on the inside, he would go here. But then if he went on the outside, he would position his car here. In other words, he had many different scenarios going into the first corner. Then, in the heat of competition, he wouldn’t need to think on the spot because he had a pre-thought-out strategy.

I brought a lot of what Nigel said to me into my captaincy. I had so many different scenarios thought out. You need to be proactive, not reactive. The only thing I had clear in my mind was that Graeme McDowell would play No.1. I told him that two weeks in advance and he was sworn to secrecy so that no one else would know. 

DON’T LEAVE PEOPLE FRETTING OVER THEIR ROLE 

The week before the Ryder Cup in 2002, there was a WGC event on at Mount Juliet. I wasn’t playing well enough to get in, and neither was Lee Westwood. Sam Torrance took us up to The Belfry while the rest of the team were playing in Ireland. All the stands were up and Sam had the course prepared perfectly for how it would be. We played a casual round and on the way back, Sam was sitting with me in the back seat and told me the whole plan for the week: how many matches I would be playing, who I would be playing with, and what my role in the team was. “Now,”
he said, “that could possibly change, but I’m setting out my stall that you will play foursomes the first day, foursomes the second day. That’s my plan.”

For me, that was a big weight off my shoulders. All the anticipation – all the am I going to play, am I not – was gone. All I needed to prepare for was foursomes with Padraig. I thought that was great man-management.

PICK THE PERFECT NO.1 FOR THE SINGLES

I’ve always been a believer that the best player doesn’t necessarily go out first. Why? Because they’ve got nowhere else to go but win.

The street fighters, guys with a massive heart – people like Manuel Pinero, Lanny Wadkins – make and have made great No.1s in the past. But in order to get the street fighter in the right frame of mind, you need to prepare them effectively. If you surprise them on Saturday night, that just doesn’t work. You have to make sure they are psychologically prepared. 

No.1 in the singles, irrespective of the score, is a very, very important decision. It’s like the very first tackle in a football match. That impression you put and leave on the opposition. It’s all about building momentum. It’s a cliché,
I know, but it has a massive impact when it comes to team sports.

That’s why I played Graeme McDowell only once on the first day in 2014, and once on the second day. I wanted him to be as fresh as possible going into the singles.