How Keegan Bradley's USA were taught a Ryder Cup lesson

0:02Chappers:This is a Global Player original podcast.

0:05Iain Carter:Well, when Team Europe won the Ryder Cup in Rome two years ago, Rory McIlroy made this pledge. Listen, I think one of the biggest accomplishments in golf right now is winning an away Ryder Cup. And that's what we're going to do at Bethpage. And despite a tortuous final day at times as the Americans attempted to stage a miracle comeback, Team Europe held on to win the 45th Ryder Cup. In the hole! Yeah!

0:39Chappers:He did it. That was the hardest couple of hours of my own life, honestly. I just can't believe it. I can't believe that putt went in. I said over it going, this is it. I said to Darren, walking down 18, I said, I have a chance to do the coolest thing in my life here.

0:53Iain Carter:And like, the Ryder Cup means everything to me, honestly.

1:00Iain Carter:Amazing moment for Shane Lowry to make that putt and retain the trophy. I'm here still in New York the morning after the BBC's Ian Carter is with us for a special episode of the pod to reflect on a dramatic and emotional, a controversial Ryder Cup, one of the most of all of those in recent memory. Team Europe defied the history, the odds and the crowd to win on the American soil for the first time since 2012. And how satisfying was that? Very fucking satisfying. Congratulations. Welcome to The Sports Agents.

1:43Iain Carter:The Sports Agents. With Gabby Logan and Mark Chapman. Well, it has been an amazing sporting weekend, hasn't it? Gabby and I had to divide and conquer. So if you're subscribed to the podcast, you'll have seen the special bonus episode drop on Sunday as Gabby was joined by the former World Cup winner Katie Daly-McLean to explain how England became world champions in the Rugby Union World Cup. And on this side of the Atlantic, I've been at Bethpage Black for the 45th Ryder Cup. BBC's golf correspondent Ian Carter joins us. How good was that?

2:21Chappers:I think there was a hope, Mark, that we would potentially get an away win, not from a parochial point of view, but to buck the trend of convincing home wins. But above all, we wanted something that had a lot of jeopardy on it on the Sunday afternoon. And it looked like we weren't going to get the latter, but we would get the former. And actually, we got both. So yeah, it turned into being very, very special indeed, I think.

2:45Iain Carter:And you could highlight virtually every European for contributing in some way, shape or form, couldn't you?

2:52Chappers:I think so, yes. I mean, Rasmus Hoigard didn't win a point, didn't contribute to the tally, but I think basically everyone else did. And as a collective, I think it was just a collective of the Europeans. There is that togetherness that seems to evade the Americans. And I think how well the Americans played to make it competitive on the Sunday, while Keegan Bradley is saying he couldn't be prouder of them, those players saved him from humiliation by doing that. But actually by doing that, they illustrated how poorly the first two days had gone when you're trying to meld partnerships that fundamentally didn't work.

3:39Chappers:So I think there's a double-edged sword there. And while many people might turn around and say, wow, yeah, God, there really was some fighting spirit there. Well done, Keegan. Actually, what they did on the Sunday exposed how badly they were put together on Friday and Saturday.

3:57Iain Carter:We talk a lot about culture and sport on this podcast and in general. And obviously it plays a massive part in team sport. And what you can't take away from those first two days in particular is how much this European team like each other, how much they are there with their friends. And Luke Donald said it in the press conference afterwards last night, there isn't anybody on this team that anybody has come up to me and said, I don't want to play with them.

4:29Chappers:I'm not sure how deep the friendships are, to be perfectly honest, because they're all rivals. There are some very deep friendships there. Tommy Fleetwood and Justin Rose, Shane Lowry and Rory McIlroy as examples. But they have a bond, don't they? Exactly. They have a bond and they have a collective objective, which has been fostered by Luke Donald and by the whole operation as far as the Ryder Cup is concerned from the European standpoint. And it's that messaging from from, you know, harnessing the heritage that goes all the way back to Tony Jacklin and Seve Ballesteros and turning that into a legacy for the generations to come.

5:13Chappers:And that sense of continuity, that continued sense of pride, the fact that they spent the first four days of practice wearing outfits that reflected the four times that Europe had won away from home, just a subliminal way of saying, yes, it can be done. It can be done. And, you know, it's clever. It's just clever. And all of those kind of things, fostering that spirit, seem to be beyond the United States.

5:40Iain Carter:well the other thing and look i mentioned this last night that this group of europeans seems set you know as as a group there are still some very young ones in there to play many rider cups and somebody made the point that well we thought that about the americans four years ago that they were going to be set for a decade of dominance and so on and so forth but whatever happens on the course win or lose what the europeans have always been very good in my it feels in my sort of lifetime of watching it and enjoying it and covering it 25 30 years they're very good at passing the baton on aren't they they're very good at having that senior senior leader which is justin rose at the moment be there for as long as they possibly can by which time the next lot come through and the younger ones are then taking that next yes absolutely it's that

6:33Chappers:sense of continuity we've never had the continuity that we had for this match um you know with 11 of the 12 still being there and the same captain being there as well and i think that that helped greatly but i think the other thing you have to put into context you know after that whistling straits hammering 99 to the united states the whole golf world changed with the arrival of live and one of the things that that did was it attracted henrik stenson who was going to be the European captain and Europe were in a hole and Luke Donald stepped up and by accident they unearthed a fantastic leader who they're now saying you know two more years two more years and whether he goes for a third match we wait to see and I think it'll be a while before we actually find that out but that it also did damage to the Americans you know the likes of Patrick Reed went away Bryson DeChambeau wasn't really available for the one last time he was for this one he played himself onto the team but all of that churn has contributed to where we are at the moment but fundamentally the americans don't have the same strategy you know they were i think they wanted tiger woods to be the captain this time around and he didn't have time for it i can't imagine a european not having time to be captain of the european team yeah they don't have a lineage they

7:53Iain Carter:don't have a lineage do they yeah i mean it jumps from one to another justin thomas is probably their their sort of Ryder Cup leader to a certain extent out of that 12, would you say? Yeah.

8:06Chappers:I don't know, really. You're scrabbling around a bit. He's on the committee. But if you think back to when Keegan Bradley was appointed, Justin Thomas was at a very, very similar level in terms of his golfing ability. And you would say, as an assessment, who's got more chance of being in that Ryder Cup team? and it'd be a 50-50 call between Justin Thomas at that point and Keegan Bradley and neither of them qualified for the team and Thomas got a call up but my point is why didn't they give it to Justin Thomas they could just as easily have given it to Thomas rather than Bradley Bradley got the nod because he cried on Netflix and showed how much he how much it mattered to him that was that was the fundamental catalyst to him suddenly going into that conversation that doesn't seem to me to be the kind of the kind of reasoning um that you want if you're

9:01Iain Carter:going to go really deep on a strategy do you think luke donald has redefined the role of of captain in a rider cup and that the right because of what the rider cup has become it's more than just a sort of honorary role for doing well in your career and moving on to the next stage and i know keegan and Bradley got it by complete fluke. And there is a quote from Keegan Bradley, which I've got here, when he talked about getting the call to be US Ryder Cup captain. I don't think I'll ever be more surprised by anything in my entire life, which kind of shows how they stumbled around and ended up on Bradley.

9:36Iain Carter:Whereas Europe now feel like this is like an elite level role in sport. This isn't just, oh, you've had a good golfing career. Go and run the Ryder Cup for a couple of years. Do you think he has redefined it?

9:47Chappers:I think he's definitely developed it. And I think that he has shown the level of insight and diligence that is required to do it really, really well. But the continuity is much greater when you've got people like Paul McGinley strategizing. McGinley came in as a captain and I think did the job in a similar way to Luke Donald. Right down to, I remember, you know, we're the morning after the night before. at glen eagles the morning after the night before i went into the team room and i interviewed paul mcginley then and there was a goldfish tank and the goldfish were either yellow or blue i mean yeah literally yellow and blue fish in the tank details just details just thinking and thinking and thinking and you know you look at the picture of that's there today uh that's all over social media of Shane Lowry cuddling the Ryder Cup in the European team room and above him is the quote from Keegan Bradley at the President's Cup from a year ago saying we're going to Bethpage to kick their effing asses and that was right in the faces of the Europeans and you know that Seve Ballesteros's influence would be somewhere else and all of all of those kind of things and that's luke donald's attention to detail he's thrown absolutely everything at it and whoever the next rider cup captain is and whenever we get another european rider cup captain i think there'll be an expectation that the job has to be done with a similar level of diligence the sports agents the sports agents with gabby logan and mark chapman

11:35fuck you oh come on

11:38Chappers:come on man seriously

11:46Iain Carter:you've brought the effing into this do you just a final one on atmosphere and I find myself going around in circles a little bit with this right so some of the heckles that I heard from the fans I'm like really Is that what you're going with? I heard them shout, you big baby, at Shane Lowry, which I think he may have nearly laughed at at that point. I heard someone shout out, John Rahm, you look like a donut. I mean, they're not exactly A, witty, or B, at the harsh end of abuse. And yet at the same time, Rory McIlroy's wife gets B, thrown at her. It has been a very odd atmosphere at times, horrible atmosphere at times and as one of the papers i've read this morning one of the articles said it might get very close to having a problem the rider cup here with a sort of stag do element atmosphere and rory mcelroy said in his press conference i think yesterday that golf needs to be held to a higher standard because of its history where where are you with it all i agree

12:55Chappers:with Rory McIlroy and I think uh what he had to endure Shane Lowry had to endure what Rory McIlroy's wife had to endure was disgusting and the more I've heard and about it as you know Mark when we're commentating we tend to get ahead of the shots so I I walked all 18 holes with with McIlroy yesterday with Scotty Scheffler and I didn't hear much at all but I could tell that things were getting more and more wearing on him and I know you know I was with Oliver Wilson on Five Live and we were sort of checking in with Thomas Bjorn who was the vice captain and and it became clear that it was really really wearing on on McElroy and you know he was spent in in that match but he was having to withstand the kind of the kind of language and messaging that was just utterly disgusting and shouldn't be tolerated and I think golf is a very very special sport I don't want to get all high and mighty about it but what it does teach anyone who takes up the game at a young age is how to behave and how to be courteous and how to respect other people and not disturb them when they're playing a shot or whatever it might be and that often makes me very proud to be a just a club golfer never mind you know the job that i do and i think that and it's not just at the rider cup we've seen it at the open championship we don't tend to see it at the masters they have zero tolerance on this kind of thing and i think that zero tolerance has to come in to protect the game going forward it can't become a booze fueled stag do with people able to vent at what they think is funny but is nasty and insulting there's no place in the world for that there shouldn't be in my opinion certainly in the golfing world do it in other sports that's fine because you're because the the unique thing about golf is it's it's silent when they're playing the shot so there is that opportunity for someone to shout something and be heard if you're at a football match everyone's shouting so even if you you come up with a good line it doesn't matter you know or it's a collective thing but in golf you you know the spectators have that opportunity because of the silence that that falls by everybody else who's respecting the game and i i think the sport as a whole has to really think about how it's going to crack down on this the final thing here

15:27Iain Carter:just summed up the camaraderie of the europeans and the wit of the europeans actually was in the press conference and hopefully people listening have seen the clip where a journalist asked rory how satisfying was it after someone had told you to f off to stiff a shot to within two feet and then turn around and gesture at them and he went very effing satisfying and then there was like a two second pause and then Tommy Flewwood went, he didn't stiff it to two feet. I still had to put it. I thought that kind of, I just thought it summed it up as the wit and tried to diffuse it, but recognising the ridiculous nature of what they had to put up with.

16:08Chappers:Humour and class, isn't it? Humour and class. And if that can win out, then we've had a good time.

16:17Iain Carter:Thanks very much to Ian. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast wherever you're listening. Remember, all of our episodes are available on YouTube, Global Player, or wherever you get them. Make sure you rate, follow, and subscribe while you're at it. Gabby and I, back on Thursday. The Sports Agents.

16:31Chappers:With Gabby Logan and Mark Chapman.