Written by Stephen Moloney (www.twitter.com/TheCheeky9)
With the European Tour’s flagship event, the BMW PGA Championship, underway this week at the golf course equivalent of “the good room” that is Wentworth, it marks the fact that the 2018/19 season is coming to a close and, as such, we’re getting close to entering the last few laps in “The Race to Dubai” – a race currently being led by the current Open Champion and, according to my sources, the owner of at least one 00’s-era Offaly GAA jersey, Shane Lowry.
Yet, as much as this week’s tournament signifies things coming to an end, the decadent surrounds of the West Course at European Tour HQ are also serving as the official starting line for another, quite important, race: that, of course, to make the 2020 Ryder Cup team.
Yes, from this week on, anyone hoping to avoid having to rely on getting one of Pádraig Harrington’s three ‘Captain’s Picks’ to secure their seat on the plane to Wisconsin will be trying to build up enough points over the next twelve months to ensure they have their spot in one of those nine glorious automatic qualification places firmly cemented before next year’s annual visit to Wentworth – what, at that stage, will be the ‘last chance saloon’ for someone to either scrape into one of those aforementioned nine places or put on enough of a show to warrant getting the ‘golden ticket’ that would be a ‘Captain’s Pick’.
But just like this week is a big moment for those players with an eye on becoming one of those twelve men to don the blue and yellow and play for that circle of stars against, like it always is, a formidable American side led by Steve Stricker, it’s every bit as momentous for the American Captain’s European counterpart.
Because this is it now. I mean, yeah, it was announced that Harrington would be taking the helm all the way back in January, and God knows there probably haven’t been too many minutes in the ensuing nine months between then and now when the three-time Major winner hasn’t been thinking about or planning for that week in Whistling Straits; but, with the week that’s in it, I wonder if he’s feeling even the slightest bit different? Like, is the reality of what lies ahead of him next September suddenly becoming that little bit more real now that the process for his eventual team coming together is about to begin? Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. The only one who can truly know is Harrington himself.
What I do know, however, is that a year from now I wouldn’t want anyone else leading the European team into the cauldron that will be Whistling Straits – a Ryder Cup that isn’t just a home game for the American side, but one that is literally a home game for their Captain, who was born and raised in Wisconsin. And after what happened in Paris, coming on nearly exactly a year ago, with the Europeans cruising to a seven-point victory on the difficult Albatros Course at Le Golf National, the Americans will be out to, not only reclaim the Ryder Cup, but prove a point in the process.
Basically, it’s going to be hard. Then again, “away” Ryder Cups always are. I mean, the fact that Europe, in the nine matches there’s been since we entered a new century, have managed to do it twice is something of an anomaly – and especially so when you factor in that the Americans haven’t done it since 1993 at the Belfry. But that’s why Harrington is the exact right man for the job. Because to face into the challenge that is going over to America and getting a result requires, I think, a certain set of attributes. You need to be intense, but controlled. You need to be able to remain a level of intense focus under the most trying of circumstances, even when things are going wrong. And, perhaps most importantly, you have to play with a relentless sense of doggedness, where anyone looking to take a point away from you will have to beat it out of you, because you won’t just roll over and give it up.
And for those of us who were lucky enough to see Harrington play in all or just some of his six Ryder Cup appearances and also during that magical two year period from ‘07 to ‘08 when he won the Open back-to-back and then the PGA, looking nigh-on unbeatable at times, we know that he possesses all of those attributes and then some.
So, yes, it’s a big moment for a lot of those players in the field at Wentworth this week – beginning an odyssey always is. But they aren’t the only ones sailing out on their own personal “Argo” come Sunday evening – their “Jason”, just like he will be next September, is going to be right there along with them … except he just so happens to be called Pádraig.