Paris: Triumphant European Ryder Cup captain Thomas Bjorn credited all his 12 players for making his job an ‘easy one’ during a weekend in which they comprehensively outplayed the United States in France.
While Francesco Molinari and rookie Tommy Fleetwood were Bjorn’s top dogs, winning four points as a pair, his four picks — Sergio Garcia, Henrik Stenson, Ian Poulter and Paul Casey also earned 9.5 points.
“I felt all along that this was a good group of guys,” Bjorn, who in 1997 became the first Dane to play in the Ryder Cup, told reporters with his team by his side.
“This turned out pretty exciting because the way that the 12 of them joined up together as a team and the way they looked after each other throughout the week made captaincy pretty easy.”
Europe had trailed 1-3 after Friday’s fourballs but they swept the afternoon foursomes with Bjorn using all 12 of his players, including five rookies, on day one.
By Saturday evening they were 10-6 ahead and firm favourites to complete a seventh win in the last nine Ryder Cups.
Furyk takes blame for loss
Paris: United States captain Jim Furyk proverbially fell on his own sword Sunday, accepting blame for his team’s heavy loss to Europe at the Ryder Cup. In the process, Furyk became the sixth consecutive American leader to preside over a losing team in Europe. “Thomas (Bjorn) was a better captain, and their team out-played us,” Furyk said, surrounded by the 12 players on his team at a glum news conference. He did a good job. When a team is successful, as they were and as well as they played, that shows to me they had great leadership.”
