Team Europe face one of the toughest – and roughest challenges – in golf and sport for that matter when they defend the Ryder Cup in New York in September against not only a fired-up Team US but also a scarily partisan crowd who will be loudly howling for revenge.
The pasting the Americans tasted two years ago at the Marco Simone Golf and Country Club in Rome at the hands of Luke Donald’s Europeans will still be rankling their rivals over the water and history has not exactly been kind to visiting teams on US soil over the decades.
It’s been 13 long years since Europe last triumphed in the States, one of only four away victories it has tasted since 1979.
On and off the course, everything will need to be working like clockwork in the Europeans’ favour for Donald’s men at Bethpage Black Course in Farmingdale and the unassuming but fiercely competitive and detailed Englishman is leaving no stone unturned as he seeks a rare repeat win in golf’s greatest and most historic team test.
Donald has accordingly assembled a formidable arsenal of experienced Ryder Cup know-how with his vice-captains, Eduardo Molinari and Thomas Bjorn, and a backroom team of equally impressive expertise.
Dr/Prof Andrew Murray, Chief Medical and Scientific Officer, DP World Tour, and Sport and Exercise, University of Edinburgh
Dr Andrew Murray, Chief Medical and Scientific Officer for the DP World Tour, who also leads health and performance for the R&A, the Open Championship, also boasts a resumé that covers Olympics, Paralympics and World Athletics Championships among other top sporting events, is another vital cog in that smooth-running engine and could yet make a significant difference without, of course, hitting a ball.
It’s his job to keep Team Europe fit, mentally and physically, and focused on the mighty job in hand and the recent Team Cup, pitching many of the likely players in the biennial clash between GB & Ireland and Continental Europe at Abu Dhabi Golf Resort was a Ryder Cup dress rehearsal for both the pros and Dr Murray.
Don’t get us wrong, the Team Cup is a very serious sporting clash that carries important bragging rights within the European pro community on Tour for the next two years but naturally much of the focus was still firmly on New York and the Ryder Cup showdown from September 25-28 when the teams locked horns in the first week of January.
Ryder Cup New York 2025 – Luke Donald and Keegan Bradley – Andrew Redington
Dr Murray suggested in an exclusive interview with Golf Digest Middle East that the Europeans under Donald’s meticulous planning that reaped such rewards in 2023 in Italy, were already shaping up impressively with a close-knit team spirit clearly in evidence at the Team Cup.
“Luke Donald is a fantastic captain, extremely evident from the work that he did at Marco Simone. But I think what a good captain does is bring on board the right professionals that have got expertise in specific areas and help inform and make sure that everything that we can do to support optimal performance for our players is done,” he said.
“Culturally, Team Europe has always looked to work together and build on whatever advantage they’ve got, and you can really see that at what happened at Marco Simone, in particular looking forward to New York as well.
“Luke’s very collaborative, he’s got a great group of vice captains there and a great group of staff who are looking to support the players and make sure that we can help with performance and in my role, help with illness and any injury or other concerns that they have got.”
Just as is the case with all sports, the top professionals are susceptible to injury and illness and Dr Murray and his team are certainly doing all they can to ensure all the cream of European golf pitch up in the States, fully fit and ready to rumble come September.
Certainly, they won’t be short of backroom expertise and amazing facilities to keep them firing on all cylinders. Dr Murray describes a week-in-week-out fitness and wellness travelling provision for the DP World Tour players that would put many leading gyms – and specialist medical centres – to shame.
“We know that our golfers are always looking to see how they can hit the ball further and closer to the hole and week in week out on the DP World Tour, and there’s a number of services that we provide to them,” said the genial Scot with admirable understatement, before listing all on offer.
“There’s a well-equipped gym to help with strength, and power, flexibility. There is a strength and conditioning coach to help support with that, physiotherapists.
“We’ve got performance nutritionists and player-focused dining in the players’ lounges, we’ve got mental fitness, we have got medical professionals, we’ve got the ability to scan using diagnostic ultra-sound on site, we have skin screening, heart health assessments; basically, all the things that we have spoken to the players about and introduced based on player feedback.”
Rory McIlroy – Ryder Cup – Richard Heathcote
For the Team Cup and Ryder Cup, the standards don’t drop a millimetre, he says. “In the team environment, we are very much guided again by the captain and by the vice-captains and by the players themselves. We know the science of it but we’re really keen just to make sure that what we put in is appropriate for golf.”
But it’s not just the incredible facilities that are ensuring the players stay on the fairways, albeit that four-fifths of them will encounter some kind of injury and illness that will keep them sidelined for at least part of an average season which, let’s face it, lasts pretty much all the calendar year these days.
“Golf is a sport that has got a huge range of health benefits; we know that golf is good for length of life, it’s good for mental health, and it’s good for physical health,” said Dr Murray, a very accomplished ultra runner in his own right and government advisor on health.
“But injuries and illness do occur and if you look at injuries in particular, we do a regular survey of all our players and publish that, and hand and wrist and lower back are the two areas that we see professionals injure most frequently.
“And it’s a relatively lower risk compared to some other sports but 80% of golfers will get injured in any particular year because they play so much in terms of practice and competition.
“In terms of illnesses, again they are human beings so you get the same illnesses that you might expect from people that travel a lot. So, spending a lot of time in grass, we see a lot of hay fever, we see a lot of people with asthma, general illnesses, influenzas, that you might get around this time of year, gut ache, and things like that.
“Actually, a lot of that can be prevented so the modern-day pro and those of have played a few Ryder Cups and have been on the DP World Tour for a while tend to sleep really well, they’ve got good strategies, they manage jet lag and travel fatigue, they tend to take care of their nutrition, so plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, anything that’s colourful except for Skittles (!) tends to work.
“Again, you’ve got people being fastidious in terms of their hand hygiene, making sure that if they’ve got any illness that they report that early.”
Ryder Cup 2018 – David Cannon
Dr Murray and his team will also be focusing on the team’s mental preparations – it will not be easy walking on to that first tee come September with thousands of Americans urging you to carve it out of bounds. Again, according to Dr Murray, Donald will have left nothing to chance that he has any control over.
“An away Ryder Cup is very different to a home Ryder Cup. That might be due to travel considerations, it might be due to the amount of support that you have got. You’re likely to have largely a crowd that is cheering for Team US in New York so that’s different and there’s also the type of course and set-up that’s there,” he said.
“So, each of those elements will be being planned for by Luke. You’ve got people like Eduardo Molinari, who’s unbelievable at knowing our players really well and that statistics of what may be helpful for the Ryder Cup, and it’s like anything really.
“If you’re up against a specific challenge or you’ve got an opportunity of taking on a challenge, it’s working out what that challenge is and how you can best prepare for it as well. So, there’s no doubt that an away Ryder Cup is a really big opportunity and requires a different type of preparation from a home Ryder Cup.”
The Team Cup, Dr Murray believes, will have given many of the Europeans at least a taster of the kind of pressure cooker atmosphere they’ll be facing in nine months’ time.
“The players already know each other pretty well and are really looking forward to the change in the team environment, they’re really embracing that, they’re really embracing the information that they’ll get from this.
“They’re looking forward to the opportunity to get out there and test some partnerships and work together so there’s a great buzz about the Team Cup. The players love being in this region, they love being in the Middle East, and that’s not just for the weather, not just for the golf courses, not just for the fantastic support that they get, it’s for events like this. It’s something different.
“It’s like the Team Cup, it’s like the Hero Dubai Desert Classic next week so this week has been meticulous preparation by each of the captains, Francesco (Molinari), and Justin (Rose), and by Luke Donald, just to try to get the best result possible this week for GB & Ireland and Continental Europe but also to look ahead to future events as well.”
Main Image: Richard Heathcote
