If you want to win big, it pays to think small

Did the decision to upgrade the shampoo in the players’ hotel rooms help Europe win the Ryder Cup? Unlikely. But this detail which emerged in the team’s post-victory press conference, alongside countless others, helps paint a picture of Luke Donald’s approach to getting the job done.

“Every day, I'm trying to think about things that could help us… different things that might just give us a little edge,” explained Luke Donald, only the second European captain to win both home and away, and a four-time winner as a player.

“At the hotel rooms this week, the doors to our rooms had a big crack that let in light. We brought things that covered the light,” he explained.

Given the intensity of an away match in New York where many of Donald’s most experienced players would play four, or even all five matches, maximising opportunities for recovery became a priority.

Sleeping areas were even included in the purpose-built team HQ, featuring the same aforementioned bedding as the hotel. Because, why wouldn’t they?

As a player, Donald understood how to squeeze every last drop from his game. In an era where the most successful players could hit the ball a mile, his lack of distance off the tee was seen as a limiting factor. By others, at least.

Donald knew then how a multitude of details and small gains could combine into something much bigger.

Through smarter practice, precise iron play and an unmatched short game, he became world number in 2011, holding it for a total of 56 weeks. 

Unsurprisingly, this is the approach he has taken in to his captaincy. In fact, it’s how he defines his role: “My job is to set up an environment for success.”

It’s a phrase that encapsulates not just what good leadership should do, but how any one of us might successfully approach a challenge, goal or project of our own. If it sounds simple, obvious even, then why doesn’t everyone do it?

For the 2023 Ryder Cup in Rome, the American team arrived on a Monday, before the match began on Friday. Jet lag almost certainly played a part in their sluggish performance.

In preparation for 2025 in New York, Donald tasked his team doctor and sleep specialists to establish a plan to counteract the effects on his own players.

So, for the first time in Ryder Cup history, the team flew out to New York on a practice trip two weeks before play started and were told not to leave Eastern Standard Time to allow their circadian rhythms to adapt.

If most people saw the Ryder Cup captain’s role as little more than a figurehead – turn up, do a speech, hope the putts drop – it’s fair to say that narrative has changed.

To prepare the players for the crowd abuse they would (and indeed, did) receive from the American galleries, he brought in a comedian to heckle them, deployed VR headsets to help them literally feel what it might be like and brought in Owen Farrell and Ivan Lendl, from sports where crowds can get on your back, for their take.

He embraced the role of data through his vice-captain, Edoardo Molinari, but balanced it with his own human instincts, fostered by prioritising individual relationships with his players.

"Luke has set the bar for captaincy so extremely high. What he's done these four years of being a part of, is absolutely astonishing,” said Europe’s Jon Rahm.

What his approach achieved above all else is absolute trust from the players that everything had been taken care of. No wondering, no second guessing, no stress. Just the task in hand.

This is the additional benefit of getting our routines, details and preparation right. It creates confidence that we’re on the right path, belief that we will get to where we need to be.

This, too, is where an overall vision comes in. For this, Donald needed a theme.

”In ten (away) Ryder Cups since '83, we had won four of them and we had come damn close three other times. This wasn't an impossible task,” he said. “We knew it was going to be difficult. We wanted to inspire them to know it could be done. My job, again, is to give them the reasons to make them believe that they can win.”

He had to make what had come to feel impossible – an away win – feel tangible, comfortable even, and used visual cues at every turn.

In the locker room hung shirts from those previous wins in ’87, '95, ’04 and 2012. With an empty space for one more.

As the players left the team HQ to enter the cauldron of Bethpage, the last words they read by the exit were “Your Time, Your Place.” To everyone watching it was gametime, but the real work had already been done.