Carolina’s Davis Love proved the perfect Ryder Cup captain.
As unlikely a choice as Davis Love was to come back as Ryder Cup captain this year, that’s how good he was at putting the team together, picking his assistants for different reasons, as it all came together for a much-needed USA win at Haleztine in Minnesota.
It was a dicey choice for both the Americans and for Love, who stood shell-shocked on the finals holes at Medinah outside Chicago four years ago as Europe staged the biggest Ryder Cup comeback in history, rallying from a 10-6 deficit going into Sunday’s singles matches. After the captaincy was turned over to 65-year-old Tom Watson for the 2014 renewal in Scotland, and the U.S. lost its third straight Cup by a wide margin, Love was given another shot for 2016.
The mellow, Mr. Nice Guy, who was an All-American at UNC in the 1980s, began working on his strategies more than a year in advance. In the end, he made all the right choices from picking the charismatic Tiger Woods and the controversial Bubba Watson as his assistants to carefully filling the two-man teams based on personalities as well as professional success. Everyone, from Woods on down, said they learned from Love during the experience, which saw the U.S. roll to an easy victory by widening its 3-point lead going into Sunday.
Love went with Woods’ hunch that the fiery Patrick Reed, not yet a household name in golf, could be a calming influence on young superstar Jordan Spieth, his four-ball teammate. Love also chose Reed to take on European icon and Fed-Ex Cup champion Rory McIlroy in Sunday’s singles. When McIlroy drained the monster birdie putt on the eighth green and challenged the boisterous and rowdy American crowd by cupping his ear and saying, “I can’t hear you,” Reed retrieved Rory’s ball for him and then sank his pressure birdie putt to halve the hole. He waggled a finger at McIlroy as the crowd went crazy, then first-bumped him as to say, “It’s all a game.”
At the end, it was only one of the right moves Davis made to create the chemistry and camaraderie the American team needed to, finally, bring the Cup home. Call it a Love affair.
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