Lynch: Luke Donald will keep the Ryder Cup. He should keep the captain’s job, too

FARMINGDALE, N.Y. — The fist-pumping and flag-waving didn’t work. Nor did the foul-mouthed heckling of players and their families by Bethpage’s signature cadre of bellicose imbeciles. So now the finger-pointing can commence. A session remains at the 45th Ryder Cup, but the only prospect of a good result for the U.S. is two years away at the 46th edition. Sunday’s singles are just about hanging the toe tag on the corpse of Keegan Bradley’s team and slamming shut the mortuary drawer.

Every Ryder Cup is followed by a blame game of varying intensity and focus. Europe tends to look for institutional failures, like the cheap, shabby manner in which players were treated until Tony Jacklin took charge in the ‘80s, or the absence of talent development that meant riding aging warhorses into one battle too many three years ago in Whistling Straits.

The closest Team USA has come to a holistic analysis was the widely mocked task force created after the 2014 debacle at Gleneagles, and even that had elements of the more traditional American approach to Ryder Cup postmortems, which is to single out individual failings — Hal Sutton's misguided pairings, Tiger Woods’s apathy.

Long before the last Bethpage heckler sobers up, Bradley will take incoming fire, not least for doubling down on the statistically ill-matched pairing of Collin Morikawa and Harris English. The captain’s weary, punch-drunk demeanor at a Saturday night press conference suggested that he knows what’s headed his way. Many criticisms will have merit, but if one man can be singled out as responsible for the challenges the U.S. faces right at this moment, it’s someone who never actually played a Ryder Cup: Greg Norman.

Norman didn’t adversely impact either team by hiring away players to LIV Golf. Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka have both played for the U.S. since joining Norman’s circus. Europeans who made the same jump can remain eligible for their team if they pay fines (as Sergio Garcia did, angling for a captain’s pick that didn’t materialize) or by filing futile appeals that won’t be adjudicated until after the Ryder Cup is over (see: Jon Rahm and Tyrell Hatton). Norman instead took a generation of captains from Europe, and the accidental consequence is that leadership of the team was handed to a man who has emerged as the best skipper they’ve ever had.

Coincidentally enough, it was on the Ides of March, 2022, when Henrik Stenson was announced as captain for the ’23 matches in Rome. By July, he was out and on August 1st, Luke Donald assumed the position, spotting his opposite number, Zach Johnson, a five-month head start. It wasn’t a fair fight.

Donald has displayed the attention to detail of a money forger. He’s assembled a peerless statistical team. He gathers an effective support system around every player (for example, when one Højgaard twin qualifies, the other is on hand to help). And he’s unflappable, exuding a classy sense of calm—a trait more noticeable this week since Bradley is by disposition more fidgety and emotional.

At 47 years old, Donald has led Europe to decisive routs at home and away, proving that patriotism and passionate fans don’t translate into points, but preparation does. If he wants the job for a third time at Adare Manor in Ireland in ’27, it should be his.

The Ryder Cup provides its own twist on the cliche that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results — it’s insanity to stop doing the same thing over and over when it’s proven to work. Like sending Rory McIlroy out in foursomes with Tommy Fleetwood. Like dispatching Rahm with, well, anyone. And like having Donald at the helm.

The Patriots didn’t tell head coach Bill Belichick to bugger off after he won the Super Bowl in 2002 because his offensive coordinator, Charlie Weis, wanted his turn at the top. Belichick stuck around and won five more Lombardi trophies. Why should a Ryder Cup captaincy be different?

The role used to have continuity in Europe. Jacklin became captain for the ’83 Cup and kept it for ’85, ’87 and ’89. Bernard Gallacher led the next three teams, until ’95. Those two bridged an era in which Europe’s generation of stars first emerged and then matured into leaders, each thought deserving of a turn — names like Ballesteros, Langer, Woosnam, Faldo, Montgomerie.

Some proved exceptional captains, others not so much. Some won, some didn’t. But a trend emerged. Leaders who succeeded to acclaim, like Paul McGinley and Thomas Bjorn, had to step aside for those who didn’t (Darren Clarke and Padraig Harrington). On the other side, the captaincy has seen more crowdsourcing than continuity thanks to the task force collective that was finally blown up with the appointment of Bradley. Many men have led multiple U.S. teams, but the last to do it in consecutive matches was Ben Hogan in 1949.

An appointment as Ryder Cup captain became golf’s gold watch, a ceremonial honor for graying veterans to cap admirable careers. The event has outgrown that custom. It’s too big, too important a business, to be diminished that way.

Donald was asked to remain after the Rome win because he delivered, and because all of the other long-presumed candidates for the job — Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter, Graeme McDowell — were still wrapped up in LIV. This time, he’s earned the right to choose for himself whether to stay on performance alone. Does he want to? Perhaps not, but the call should be his. There’s still an expectation of modesty from winning captains, not wanting to seem to cling to an honorary position. But the job can’t be that anymore. Successful enterprises don’t turn over a strong leader who delivers results simply so someone unproven can have a turn.

As that other Donald seems intent on proving, this is a time when leaders need not abide by conventional term limits. So, Luke for Adare Manor in ’27!

This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Luke Donald will keep the Ryder Cup. Will he be captain again?