Paul McGinley on Ryder Cup 'regret', Rahm rumour, Tiger's return and Rory ready to roar

Paul McGinley will forever hold a place in the hearts of the Scottish golfing public after masterminding Europe’s victory in the 2014 Ryder Cup at Gleneagles. On the back of that win, the Irishman has embarked on a successful broadcasting career and he auditioned during last week’s Hero World Challenge to replace Paul Azinger as lead analyst on NBC’s golf coverage. McGinley, who is on Ryder Cup Europe’s Advisory Board and remains very passionate about the biennial event, spoke to The Scotsman’s golf correspondent Martin Dempster in the Bahamas.

So 2024 is going to mark the tenth anniversary of a special moment in your career. How do you feel about that coming around?

“Yeah, it’s scary how quickly time goes in and how things move on. Obviously great memories at Gleneagles and I still go there regularly. In fact, I was there the week of the Dunhill (LInks Championship in early October). And it’s still the same every time I walk past the creche and think about the irony as that was our team room (laughing). Yeah, obviously great memories as it was a great week and one that turned out great in a lot of different ways. The Ryder Cup has moved on a lot even since then, but I think the template has remained the same and I think the home template in particular is very similar. I think Thomas [Bjorn] and Luke [Donald] have taken it and improved it and we certainly saw that this year, but the principles of what we did remain the same. You know, playing from the heart, the representation and using the statistics in the proper way, embracing the home crowd, that element of fun and adventure. We’ve nailed that home template, but we have not nailed the away one.”

When you think of the group of players from Gleneagles and that special week, is it slightly disappointing that the heart has been ripped out of it a little bit by what has happened in golf over the past couple of years since LIV Golf came on the scene?

Victorious European captain Paul McGinley poses with the Ryder Cup after his side's success at Gleneagles in 2014. Picture: Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images.

“Absolutely. Of course, it is and it is really sad. Not just that but the memories of previous Ryder Cups as well. All those players who ended up going to LIV, we’ve all shared team rooms with them over the years and over the decades. Obviously there’s a big divide at the moment and where it ends up, we’ll have to wait and see. But, yeah, half that team - Martin Kaymer, Sergio Garcia, Graeme McDowell, Ian Poulter, Lee Westwood and Henrik Stenson - went to LIV.”

Has your relationship with those players changed as a result of what has happened in the game?

“I haven’t seen them, to be honest. They’ve gone to LIV and I’ve not seen them, really. They are on a different schedule. I’m doing TV now and they don’t come to the tournaments where I do TV. I do ten tournaments a year for TV, so I don’t see them. Yeah, life moves on. Things move on. You know, different views and we have to wait to see now what happens on 31 December (the deadline set for the framework agreement in the talks between the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and PIF).”

You’ve already mentioned Luke Donald. Was his re-appointment as Ryder Cup captain a no-brainer?

Half of Paul McGinley's winning team in the 2014 Ryder Cup on Scottish soil are now LIV Golf League players. Picture: Andrew Redington/Getty Images.

“I wouldn’t say no-brainer. Luke had to want to do it himself. We walked about the template and Thomas and Luke have done brilliant jobs in their home ones. We lost by a record margin at Whistling Straits and I know there were a lot of headwinds against us there. We lost by quite a big margin at Hazeltine, too. We had a lot of rookies on that team and it was also a young team. It’s amazing how much it had changed from 2014. We won Medinah when we shouldn’t have won except for the miracles in so many ways that were led by Poulter. We lost heavily in Valhalla, so you’ve got to go back to 2004 and Bernhard Langer to find when we last produced a really strong performance away from home. The idea is to rip up what we do because just because we do something at home doesn’t mean it is transferable and the view now is to approach this in a very different way. Give a lot more thought to the fact it is away and treat it as unique. The first move if you want to call it a chess game was to put in a captain who’d captained before and not put in a rookie captain away from home. That’s the first chess play move and Luke was the obvious choice. He took time to consider it and here we are.”

Just to clarify, was a repeat captaincy for you never an option at the time?

“It wasn’t on the table because of the amount of players waiting to be captain. You know, I knew Thomas and Darren [Clarke], in particular, were champing at the bit to be captain and I thought it would have been selfish for me to put my name forward again. Having said that, my one regret is that I never did and never will do an away captaincy as I’d have loved to have done an away one. I’d love to have helped draw up and be an architect of a different way of approaching an away match and that’s what we haven’t really done. It’s about approaching it in a very different way. A lot of the things Luke did in Italy were great, but we’ve got different challenges away from home and we’ve got to build a strategy and a plan around those different challenges. One of them is the team and the formation of that. How many picks. You know, with the DP World Tour now and ten of them coming over to America to play, how many spots will be available on the DP World Tour? Do we have more from the world rankings? Do we have less or more picks? One of the things we got wrong in Whistling Straits (where Europe suffered a record 19-9 defeat in 2021) but we fixed for Italy was the schedule on the DP World Tour. The guys went from qualifying at Wentworth for Whistling Straits to finding themselves teeing up in the Ryder Cup two weeks later and not having a lot of time in between. If we’ve learned anything from the American team, they were overgolfed going into France and they were under-golfed going into Italy. The schedule on the DP World Tour is very important and we are lucky in Europe that we have control of that because of the DP World Tour’s association with the Ryder Cup, unlike the PGA Tour, which doesn’t have any association with it. They are all the kinds of things that Luke will look at doing differently.”

How exciting can this new generation of players, led by Viktor Hovland, Ludvig Aberg and the Hojgaard twins - Nicolai and Rasmus - be going forward?

Paul McGinley reckons his template from the 2014 has not just been implemented but also improved by both Thomas Bjorn and Luke Donald in the two home Ryder Cups for Europe since then. Picture: Harry Engels/Getty Images.

“Well, it should be as it looks as we have all the young talent coming into the world game at the moment. They all seem to be European, but we all know how quickly things can change. If we were having this conversation two years ago on the back of the defeat at Whistling Straits, we’d be saying ‘Jesus, what chance have we got going forward’ if you looked at the strength of the American team and asked where the young European talent was at that time. But we unearthed some and they stood up and played well in Italy and now we look like the ones with the future. But, as successful as we were in Italy, we have to approach New York in a very different manner. But we got the wheels back on the bike, to use an expression, and now we’ve got to approach this next one in a very different way.”

We all know that the Ryder Cup is very close to your heart. What do you make of claims that it is “broken” due to the fact there’s been a lack of away wins and Justin Thomas calling for a “neutral” set up to try and alleviate that?

“I think there are reasons for away teams not winning that are not based on set up. I think it’s part of it, but players of this quality should be able to adapt. It’s like everything else, it’s all about preparation. And the idea is that we are going to be the most prepared team going into an away match at Bethpage than any team has been. Luke has proven he can prepare a team and that’s why the view very strongly from the people at the DP World Tour and behind the scenes, including the players, was that, yeah, let’s put somebody in place that’s done this before so that we hit the ground running in terms of captaincy. It’s very difficult to captain away from home if you don’t have the experience and we felt the best guy to captain away was someone who’d captained before and that will give us a bit of a head start.”

You touched on it earlier, but, with the 31 December looming, where exactly do you think things stand in terms of the framework agreement?

Luke Donald has been re-apppointed as Europe's Ryder Cup captain for the 2025 match in New York after steering the home side to a 16.5-11.5 success in this year's match in Rome. Picture: Warren Little/Getty Images.

“I think it’s a long way off. You know, it’s a very simple equation. The tour want to bring in more money but the tour is owned by the players and it’s a question of what control they will give up in order for the money to come in. That’s the simple equation, that’s what it boils down to. If you take in the money, you have to give up control and how much control will you give up as a members’ organisation. That’s the simplicity of it.”

It is fair to say that wherever we end up it’s not going to be straightforward?

“It’s not straightforward at all and we’ll see what happens with LIV as well. Does LIV come back in again and do the LIV players come back and play DP World Tour events again. That’s not my decision obviously. It’s going to be part of the negotiating. That’s for other people to decide and, whatever that is, I’ll row in behind.”

The chat about Jon Rahm and LIV is unsubstantiated at the moment, but is it weird that is happening at a time when talks are taking place between the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and LIV?

“Yeah, I guess it is. Everybody is in the dark because he hasn’t denied it, but any of us who know Jon would be surprised if he did that. But what we have learned in the last two years is that you can never discount anything, so it’s not going to be discounted by anyone within the game. You know, at the moment the game is a diluted product and my hope is that at the end of these negotiations it won’t be a diluted product any more. Hopefully we can get to a place where it’s unified and in a better place again. I don’t think the public benefits from a diluted product. I think the whole game would benefit from a more united product again and hopefully we can get to that place.”

You’ve been around Tiger Woods for a long time, starting as a player, of course. Does he still move the needle for you?

Rory McIlroy, centre, enjoyed his best-ever Ryder Cup in Rome, where Ludvig Aberg and Viktor Hovland showed the strength of the young talent in the European ranks. Picture: Alberto Pizzoli/AFP via Getty Images.

“Oh yeah, of course. But he’s got a lot of headwinds. He’s not in his 20s coming back from injury. He’s 48 later this month and he probably can’t practice the way he used to. He was a ferocious practiser and he’s obviously not able to put in that work, so you wonder where his game is going to be. He’s turned up this week saying his game is rusty. When have we ever heard him say that before? I think that’s simply because he’s not been able to practice the way he’d liked to in preparation for this because he is restricted. The other thing as well is that he’s got massive distraction going on in his life with the role he’s playing for the PGA Tour sitting on their board and that’s not going finish on 31 December if a deal is struck. You know, then is when his work will only start as then it will be overseeing for the next two years at least this new order in golf or whatever. I think we have to be a little bit more realistic about what level he can come back to play and compete at. We are all hoping for the best, but there are a lot of questions that remain and a lot of headwinds and challenges facing him.”

2024 will also mark a decade since Rory McIlroy’s last major win. Do you feel that him stepping down as a PGA Tour player director can allow him to kick on over the next few years?

“I don’t think it will do him any harm. But, having said that, I think the last two years have fired him up. Rory is an emotional player. When his heart is engaged, it’s when he’s at his best and I think all the stuff off the course the last two years has inflamed that heart of his. We saw that at the Ryder Cup. He had his best-ever Ryder Cup in Italy and you saw in the car park how much he was bought into it. I think that’s the key with Rory. You get him emotionally invested in something and that’s when he’s at his best. We’ll have to wait and see. But I think he’s been a bit unfortunate when it comes to major championships. He’s certainly played well enough to win a few of them since and, St Andrews in particular, but someone just seemed to play better on the last day as things went for them as opposed to not going for him. He’s just got to keep doing what he’s been doing. His underlying stats have never been better. Even in 2014, his underlying stats through the bag have never been better than they are now. He’s a more solid player. He’s got less weaknesses in his game than he did when he was winning major championships and he’s just got to keep that standard up and wait for the golfing gods to shine on him and keep emotionally invested in what he is doing.”

For Paul McGinley, a broadcasting career goes from strength to strength. How exciting is it to get a potential new opportunity as the new lead analyst for NBC?

“We are all part of the Comcast Group - Sky, NBC, Golf Channel. Over the last couple of years, my role has extended into America more. I do half my time with Sky and the other half is done between NBC and Golf Channel. I don’t know what the future is going to hold as I don’t know what they are thinking behind the scenes. I enjoy doing it. I only do ten tournaments a year and I’m lucky to be able to do the big events. I do big the events on the DP World Tour and the majors and TPC and Ryder Cup/Presidents Cup, as well as Wentworth and Ireland and Dubai. Ten is just great for me. It makes me relative to the current game and it makes me be part of it. I’m on the Ryder Cup Advisory Board and I enjoy that. I’ve learned a lot in terms of business as well. I’m not on the European Tour Board any more because since things kicked off with LIV, the feeling was that I was compromised being in the media and also being on the board so I stepped away. I still have an interest and I really do hope we get to a place where some kind of deal is done and that would be best for the game.”

Do you feel the Ryder Cup captaincy at Gleneagles has been part of where you are in your broadcasting career?

“Oh yeah, it’s the platform. Without the Ryder Cup, I wouldn’t have had the career I have on TV, there’s no doubt about that. I had a good career on the European Tour, but the Ryder Cup has been very good to me in a lot of ways and not just in a playing sense. Including vice captaincies, I was involved in six Ryder Cups and I’m fortunate that we won all six of them, so I’ve got a lot of great memories when it comes to the Ryder Cup. It was great getting back on the horse again after Whistling Straits. Padraig had a lot of challenges. That was as tough a captaincy as anyone has ever had to endure on the back of Covid, on the back of an aging team, on the back of a strong American team, on the back of travel restrictions and not have any European fans there. We had a lot of headwinds against us and also not a lot of form on the back of qualification finishing so late and not having the proper team to prepare. There were reasons why we lost by a record margin. It’s somewhat surprising and also pleasing that we’ve got back on the horse as quickly as we have done. Two years later, who would have thought we would have won so convincingly in Italy? It’s amazing how quickly it has turned around and a lot of it, I give a huge amount of credit to Luke as he was an outstanding captain. He did all the stuff we did before and did it better. The players were all bought in. We had a young, vibrant team - the youngest Europe had ever put out. We had a really good balance in that team and it was led brilliantly in front of great crowds.”

Guys like Jose Maria Olazabal, Thomas Bjorn and yourself surely deserve a bit of credit as the speeches you guys gave at the Hero Cup in Abu Dhabi in Janaury must have inspired the players involved in that?

“One of the things we did after Whistling Straits, and I was involved in this and Padraig was as well, was sit down and do a full root and branch review. We’d just lost by a record margin. Why? Let’s identify the reasons why and we had a long list of 15-20 different reasons that were against us, some of which I have already outlined. Then it as a case of working out what we needed to do to fix each one. It was a proper strategy we put in place and one of the things that was very clear was that, because of Covid again, Padraig didn’t have a Seve Trophy. I was very strong about that in my briefings in the debrief. I said that even if we have to put it on ourselves, we have to put on a Seve Trophy-style event and, thankfully, Hero put the money into do that and we had it in Abu Dhabi. Guys like Sepp Straka benefited, as did Bob MacIntyre and also Nicolai Hojgaard. Sam [Torrance] came and spoke one night, too. Olly and I were there as consultants for the week. One of the things that I find very eerie when I think about becoming captain for the Seve Trophy was standing in front of your peers and addressing them as captain is quite a strange place to be. Going to a golf tournament without your golf clubs, having done it for 25-30 years, is a very strange thing to do. If you are doing that for the first time as Ryder Cup captain, it’s a tough place to be and Padraig had to do that whereas Luke didn’t because of the Hero Cup. Luke was nervous in Abu Dhabi about addressing the players for the first time and I think it is far to say that he wasn’t very polished in the team room that first time. But then you look at where he was in Italy and how comfortable he was. I was at some of the team meetings behind the scenes and to see the Luke then compared to the Luke Donald we saw at the start of the Hero Cup was totally different. So straight away, aside from the players getting experience, it was also a benefit for the captain.”

What other benefits did the Hero Cup have for the players who competed in that and then made it to Rome?

“Another benefit, and Bob is a good example, is that he got to meet all the people who work behind the scenes at the Ryder Cup. From the people who tailor your clothes to the people who organise your travel to the player liaison people, they were all in Abu Dhabi, so Bob, for example, knew who he had to go to get his trousers hemmed. That sounds a small thing, but it all comes under the banner of preparation. It meant the younger guys in the team in Italy hit the ground running. Prep, prep, prep. And, once you think you’ve prepped enough you prep more. You can’t be prepared enough and that’s why it goes back to a point we opened up about ie we need to prepare better for an away match. We prepare brilliantly for home matches, but we need to think outside the box about how we approach an away match in a very different manner and with a different mindset. Maybe tweak a couple of things like the qualifying and preparation and getting practice rounds on the golf course and preparing for the set up of the golf course and the style of golf the Americans will probably force us to play with the set up they’ll go with. All of those things are preparation.”