Ryder Cup 2025: Europe’s Captain Everything reaches legend status, solidifies his place in history

The last thing that captain Luke Donald wanted his European Ryder Cup players to see as they left their team room each day at Bethpage Black was an inspirational quote. It was from an American captain. More specifically, it was from his U.S. counterpart Keegan Bradley. “We’re going to go to Bethpage to kick their f***ing ass,” Bradley had said in February on Netflix’s “Full Swing.”

Bulletin board material is nothing new in sports, so this wasn’t exactly an outside-the-box idea by Donald. But the placement of Bradley’s comment was illustrative of Donald’s ability to leverage every advantage, pull every string, large or small, to “button things up,” as former U.S. captain Paul Azinger noted, during Donald’s two stints as Europe’s leader.

“I can't tell you the amount of work that Luke in particular has put into putting together this detailed plan and approach for where we are,” Paul McGinley, one of Donald’s vice captains, said Saturday on Golf Channel. “But even in the heart of hearts, and I'm sure Luke will say the same. I knew we were good. I knew we were well prepared. I knew if we didn't win, we'd come really close.”

It ended up being incredibly close. But not the way McGinley had meant. Yes, it was close, but that was because the United States got its act together on the final day in singles. In the end, however, after building a seven-point lead through two days, the Donald-led Europeans completed the task that Rory McIlroy set out for him and his teammates to accomplish with a 15-13 victory in the 45th Ryder Cup.

Europe’s fifth win on American soil since 1979 was the scenario envisioned by members of the victorious 2023 team when they expressed their unanimous support for Donald to return as captain. McIlroy laid down the marker at Marco Simone in Rome when he said, “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.”

Jamie Squire

Donald was charged with executing the plan, which he did magnificently on perhaps the most challenging piece of U.S. real estate for a team of foreign-born athletes—New York.

The former World No. 1 joins fellow Englishman Tony Jacklin as the only European captains to win back-to-back in the Ryder Cup, with Jacklin breaking the U.S. wall in 1987 at Muirfield Village Golf Club in Ohio with a team that included Bernhard Langer and Jose Maria Olazabal, future captains to also lead wins in hostile territory. Jacklin’s teams went 2-1-1 as he set the tone for the successes Europe continues to enjoy as it improves to 13-6 since it joined the Great Britain & Ireland contingent.

The assertive and innovative Jacklin still has to be regarded as the greatest European captain—if not the all-time finest captain for either side—but Donald, 47, is a close second on the Euro podium. Very close considering how lopsided the advantage had become for the home team in the previous four matches, each decided by no fewer than five points. With a team featuring 11 players from the 2023 squad, Donald cracked a code that had become exceedingly confounding to recent visiting captains from both sides.

“In my eyes, Luke Donald is the best European Ryder Cup captain of all time,” a magnanimous Bradley said in the immediate aftermath. “He's an incredible leader. He's really quiet, and I think he was able to kind of come out of his shell, I guess, a little, in these Ryder Cup years. I think he turned this European team into a really unstoppable force, especially the first two days. I was really excited to go up against him, but I knew it was going to be tough to beat him. He put his team in the best position to win, and to do that at these two places [Rome and New York] is a remarkable feat.”

“Luke has set the bar for captaincy so extremely high,” said Spain’s Jon Rahm. “What he's done these four years of being a part of, is absolutely astonishing. He has been so professional, so dedicated, so incredibly meticulous, and well organized and doing everything that he needs to do and that's why you've seen the two performances you've seen from us. He's the leader of ship, and he's definitely led us the right way.”

Carl Recine

A winner throughout team events—he improved to 8-0 when you account for four Ryder Cup wins as a player and two in the Walker Cup in 1999 and 2001—Donald threw himself into what he called a “three-and-a-half-year project.” He spoke afterward of his job, which was, “literally to give these guys a better chance to win. It can be as simple as some very small things.”

He went on to give examples—the changes he made to the hotel rooms, everything from contraptions to block out light that seeped from under the doors to better sheets and bedding to also aid sleep to snacks to even “shampoos [Le Labo] that had a better smell.”

“It's just taking the time and having the care that you want to do everything you can to kind of give these guys the best opportunity. You want create an environment where they can succeed,” Donald added.

There is an argument that the LIV Golf League has adversely affected U.S. fortunes, and there is some validity to that. Europe was able to retain the services of two studs in Rahm and Tyrell Hatton while only Bryson DeChambeau could break through to qualify on points for America. Would LIV players Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed or Brooks Koepka been better options? Put it this way: Would they have been worse?

But it now appears the killer LIV defector from the U.S. perspective was actually Henrik Stenson. He was slated to serve as European captain in Rome until he bailed for Saudi PIF riches. Other potential Euro leaders also went to LIV and let die their captaincy chances—Sergio Garcia, Lee Westwood, Graeme McDowell and Ian Poulter. Into the void in August 2022 stepped Donald. His inspirational touches were noteworthy, starting with the video montages of each player highlighting their career achievements.

This time around, Donald played up the four European wins in America. Leveraged them, actually. The reminders were everywhere, including the shirts from those New World victories in 1987, ’95, 2004 and ’12. And he appropriated the New York state motto; “Excelsior,” meaning “ever upward,” was stitched on the top pocket of each player’s bag.

Talk about stealing home thunder. Europe owned the genuine New York state of mind thanks to its captain.

“We Belong Here,” was another prominent message. And the “Our Time. Our Place” video that Donald helped conceptualize with the European content team was truly an uplifting message to his guys. Having Olazabal return as a vice-captain was another important decision. Olazabal, of course, was captain for Europe’s inconceivable “Miracle at Medinah” comeback in 2012—the last of four teams on which Donald competed. It’s probably no coincidence that each of those teams was victorious, including road wins at Medinah and Oakland Hills in 2004, the latter a nine-point triumph that tied the previous margin of victory for a visiting team before Bethpage.

It’s not a stretch to wonder if Europe would have been as prepared for Bethpage and the accompanying New York crazies if Donald had been a rookie captain. Maybe. But the point is moot.

Andrew Redington

Donald has had an answer to every question these last two Ryder Cups. All but one. On Saturday night, as his team fashioned the largest lead in history going into singles, he was asked about his legacy as captain.

“I think legacy has something to do with winning and losing, of course, but for me it's more important what my teammates think about me,” he replied. “How I go about things, the preparation that I go into and the trust that I've created amongst the team, the fact that I do things … I try to do things from a humbling way and integrity way.

“Integrity is really just doing the things you say you're going to do,” he continued. “So I gave the team a promise that I would prepare as best as I could for them over these last 19 months, and that's good enough for me, whatever the result is.”

It was understandable, then, the reticence he assumed when the subject of his future Ryder Cup role was broached. Integrity is really just doing things you say you’re going to do.

So he couldn’t answer the one inevitable query: Would he return to lead Europe for a third time in two years at Adare Manor in Ireland? His players pounded the tables in the interview room to express their hopes that he would.

“I’m going to enjoy tonight with my team,” Donald could only say.

He can do better than that. Whatever he decides, he can enjoy his place in history.

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