Luke Donald Plotting Course Changes In Bid To Reclaim Ryder Cup

Luke Donald will have narrow fairways, more rough and slower greens as he revealed his set-up plan for the Ryder Cup course

Luke Donald
(Image credit: Getty Images)

Luke Donald has given an indication of how he will set-up the course for this year’s Ryder Cup in order to give Europe the best possible chance of regaining the trophy from Team USA.

The Europeans took a savage beating with a record defeat at Whistling Straits in 2021, but now they’re back on home soil – where the USA haven’t won for 30 years.

While all the talk has been about team selection and the future of the Ryder Cup with Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter and Sergio Garcia resigning their DP World Tour membership – the course was the focus for Donald in Rome.

And just as Thomas Bjorn did at Le Golf National in 2018, Donald is looking at course set-up to play a big part in a European victory.

With Donald and several European team hopefuls playing the Italian Open at Marco Simone Golf Club this week, the captain says that he’ll be looking to tighten up the fairways for the Ryder Cup match and put a premium on accuracy – which worked well in Paris last time.

"Since playing it last year, we looked at a few different fairway lines, bringing in a few fairways a little bit tighter," said Donald.

"The template for European golf is to have a slightly narrower golf course, a little bit more rough, not greens that get too fast because that's obviously what the US guys are always used to.

"There's not a whole lot we have changed but we have added a couple of bunkers to create opportunities for better driving. I feel like Europe has good drivers of the golf ball.”

Donald added that with two or three of the par fours possibly being drivable, that will also help Europe – but warned that setting-up the course could only help so much with the teams evenly matched.

"I think it's a fun golf course in terms of there's potentially two or three driveable par fours,” he added. “Statistically, driving is a good part of our games so to have those in there could give us a slight advantage.

“But there's only so much you can do. The players are very evenly matched when it comes to statistics.

"You're just trying to find little potential differences that you can capitalise on but the standard of play is very close these days. It's hard to gain a big advantage."

Just exactly who will be in those teams is still a mystery. We know that LIV Golf players will not be allowed to play for Europe, but technically the likes of Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Patrick Reed and Bryson DeChambeau remain eligible for Team USA.

Johnson and Keopka have already said they’d like to play in the Ryder Cup and Zach Johnson has previously revealed that LIV players were still eligible for Team USA, whether he’d select them or not remains to be seen.

Paul Higham
Contributor

Paul Higham is a sports journalist with over 20 years of experience in covering most major sporting events for both Sky Sports and BBC Sport. He is currently freelance and covers the golf majors on the BBC Sport website.  Highlights over the years include covering that epic Monday finish in the Ryder Cup at Celtic Manor and watching Rory McIlroy produce one of the most dominant Major wins at the 2011 US Open at Congressional. He also writes betting previews and still feels strangely proud of backing Danny Willett when he won the Masters in 2016 - Willett also praised his putting stroke during a media event before the Open at Hoylake. Favourite interviews he's conducted have been with McIlroy, Paul McGinley, Thomas Bjorn, Rickie Fowler and the enigma that is Victor Dubuisson. A big fan of watching any golf from any tour, sadly he spends more time writing about golf than playing these days with two young children, and as a big fair weather golfer claims playing in shorts is worth at least five shots. Being from Liverpool he loves the likes of Hoylake, Birkdale and the stretch of tracks along England's Golf Coast, but would say his favourite courses played are Kingsbarns and Portrush.