London: Sam Torrance knows how Paul McGinley felt. Telling a player he has not made the cut for the 12-man team is the toughest job a Ryder Cup captain faces.
Torrance still remembers with a shudder how painful was the conversation he was obliged to have with the unlucky 13th man in 2001 (postponed a year due to 9/11).
“I had two picks, my highest ranked player who hadn’t qualified was Sergio Garcia, and I had to pick him,” he recalls. “So it left me with one choice. And it came down to [Jose Maria] Olazabal or [Jesper] Parnevik.
“No one has ever given more to the Ryder Cup than Olazabal, it means the world to him. At the time his iron play was fine, his short play was great, but his driving was horrific. I couldn’t pick him. But to tell him was awful.”
Torrance delivered the bad news in person. “I was behind the last green at the last counting event, the one where he failed to gather the points necessary to qualify automatically. I approached him and told him to his face. It was awful, a really, really horrible thing to do.”
Torrance pauses for a moment before breaking into his familiar, crinkly smile. “The other side of the coin, it was a nice call to Parnevik.”
Last week, McGinley was obliged to deliver similar bad news to Luke Donald, the former world No 1, ahead of this year’s September 23-28 event at Gleneagles, Scotland.
“It’s far and away the worst part of the job,” Torrance reckons. “I said to Paul, it’s done. For the captain, that’s the hardest day over. It’s a fantastic journey from here on in.”
Twelve years on from securing victory at the Belfry, Torrance counts leading the Ryder Cup team as “the best time of my life, by a million miles”.
Last week he was relaxing at Wentworth and looked a man at ease with life, like someone who, with that win, fulfilled his life’s ambition.
And the one piece of advice he has for his friend and successor McGinley is this: keep relaxed. “People have asked me ever since what speeches I made in the dressing room,” he says. “I certainly didn’t dip into the history books to check out a relevant quote from Lincoln or Churchill.
“What you have are situation speeches. Say you’re going into the singles and you’re three behind, someone is going to get up and say something that will move people. But that wouldn’t be for the beginning of the week. In those early moments it’s almost more about bringing players down, getting chilled out, having fun. The last thing you want to instil is pressure.”
The tie problem
Torrance knew he had got the tone right just ahead of the formal dinner, held the night before the competition started. After a hectic day of team meetings and media appointments, he arrived back at his hotel room with barely half-an-hour to prepare.
“The wife had run me a bath. I’d just got in the water, when the phone goes. It was Pierre Fulke. ‘I’ve got a problem’, he says. ‘I need to see you’. So I tell him to come to my room. “I’ve barely put the phone down and there’s a knock. I wrap a towel round me and open the door and he’s standing there in his suit, shirt open. He’s ashen. ‘I’ve got a real problem only you can solve’, he says. Then he brings his tie from behind his back and says: ‘I can’t do my tie’. The little... But that’s exactly what I wanted. Brilliant.
“I knew from then on we’d be OK. Relax with the captain, take the mickey, that’s the way to build a team.”
McGinley will be able to tap into plenty of such experience over the days ahead. Torrance is one of five vice-captains he has selected, including another winning skipper in Olazabal.
“People ask me what was the first thing I said to Paul when I heard he’d been made captain. Do you want me to tell you the truth? I said: ‘Yes, I’d love to’. Even before he’d asked me, I wanted to be his vice-captain. Can’t wait to help.”
With a characteristic low chuckle, Torrance characterises the vice-captain’s role as being rather like that of the non-throwing members of a curling team. “When the guy let’s go of the stone, you see two guys come in brushing like crazy: that’s our job. Soon as McGinley comes out the team room, we’re clearing the way. We’re buffers.”
Not that he thinks he will have much to do. He is convinced that McGinley will have at his disposal the best team any skipper of a European side has ever put out.
“We struggled in depth in the Eighties. Sure, we had six giants as the bedrock of our team, but it got very thin after that. I know: I was one of those who were thin.”
Hang on a minute, history insists it was Sam Torrance who sank the winning putt in 1985. “People ask me what effect that putt had on me,” he says with a smile. “Very little apart from the worldwide fame and the sudden realisation I had a lot of friends.
“Listen, I was part of a team. I happened to be the man who was in position to finish it. But it needed an awful lot more than me to get to that place.” Strong or not, Torrance is loathe to make any man for man comparisons with the Americans. Partly because he does not want to think about the opponents. “I’ve not studied them. I didn’t as captain. If you start thinking about them, you pre-empt yourself. You get nowhere second guessing.”
‘Fantastically observant’
Which is why he insists McGinley is the most significant figure, because he sets the tone. It will be his choices in the pairings that could win or lose the cup. And Torrance is convinced the man his late father coached as a youngster is ideally equipped for the job.
“I’ve never known a more in-depth person. He’s been fantastically observant of every aspect of the Ryder Cup. He showed some stats to me the other day that were incredible. Obviously if I told you what they were, I’d have to kill you.
“Though there is one thing I can say: the last five holes are imperative. After a reachable par four on 14, there are two reachable par fives on 16 and 18. You could turn a three-hole deficit on its head in each round. I’d like you to print that. I want them [the Americans] to be aware of that.”
With that, the Torrance cackle is fully engaged. Along with a meaningful wink. The mind games have already started. This is going to be fun.
— The Telegraph Group Limited, London 2014
