ROME — There’s been a changing of the guard that’s taken place for both Ryder Cup teams, most notably for Europe, which is without stalwarts Sergio Garcia, Ian Poulter, Lee Westwood an♉d🔴 Henrik Stenson — all of whom are playing LIV Golf and not welcome by the DP World Tour to be members of the Ryder Cup any longer.
Garcia, who’d played on every Ryder Cup since 1999 except for 2010, is the top points winner in Europe💙an history with 28½ points with a 25-1🥀3-7 record.
Poulter always has been not only stout as a player (1ไ5-9-2, including 6-0-1 in singles) but the emotional hea🦂rt and soul of the side.
“I don’t think you necessarily need large voices within the team room,’’ European captain Luke Donald said Tuesday. “You just need pretty good clarity on why you’re here and what the reason is and how you’re going to accomplish your goal. These g�🍸�uys are very motivated, and then they seem very unified.
“To me, they seem like a great group of guys that are really getting along with each other and already creating that sort of unbreakable bond betwee𒐪n the 12 of them. So, sometimes words don’t need to be said. There’s certain things we’ll b🐻e doing throughout this week just to make sure that we are working on being a team.”
“Every team is different. This is a team that has obviously some new faces and some guys that have been part of Ryder Cup that aren’t here. They understand that it’s their opportunity now to write kind of their st🎃ory and write their history next week and start writing andꦓ creating that history for themselves.’’
Jon Ra♔hm revealed he’s been speaking to Garcia and Poulter and gleaning Ryder Cup advice.
Ra𒀰hm ღsaid he spoke to Garcia as recently as Monday.
“He did shཧow me a lot of what to do at Whistling [Straights in 2021] and obviously in Paris [in 2018], as well,’’ Rahm said of Garcia, his fellow Spaniarꩵd.
“I did have a little 🍌bit of a chat with him, and with Poulter, as well. Not that it’s going to be easy t💞o take on the [leadership] role that those two had both on and off the golf course, but just to hear them talk about what they thought and what they felt is obviously invaluable information.’’
Sam Burns came to Italy not only sp🔯orting a mulleꦑt but with the letters “U-S-A’’ shaved onto the side of his head.
“I had no idea he’s doing that,’’ U.S. captain Zach Johnson said. “He’s got great hair. I mean, I’d do it if I could do it. I just don’t have any hair to do it. So, they can have fun with it. I’ve got two, three, four guys who have it short on the sides and long in the front and long in the back. More power to them. Hey, if they are more comfortable, that’s w♉hat it’s about.’’
There have been a number of environmental groups targeting large sporting events arou🤡🐠nd the world to protest and use them as their platform for publicity.
There was an incident at the U.S. Open tennis earlier 𝕴in the month when a protester interrupted play when he glued his feet to the cement in the stadium.
Donald said there are security plans in place for this seek in 𓄧the ༒case of an incident.
“I have no idea how likely it is, but there’s a p𝔍lan in place for everything,’’ he said. “The guys will be told not to interact with the [protesters], 🍰let security deal with that and then we’ll carry on.’’
