European vice-captains ‘sick to stomach’ over brutal Ryder Cup call

Vice-captains Thomas Bjorn and Nicolas Colsaerts were left “sick to the stomach” for Adrian Meronk after his controversial snub from the European Ryder Cup team.

Speaking to bunkered.co.uk, Luke Donald’s assistants Bjorn and Colsaerts both offered their deepest sympathy for Meronk, who made an exceptional case to be selected for his debut in blue and gold, but is now considered Europe’s unlucky “13th man.”

Donald overlooked Meronk in his six wildcards, with Nicolai Hojgaard, Shane Lowry, Ludvig Aberg, Justin Rose, Tommy Fleetwood and Sepp Straka all chosen in favour of the towering 30-year-old.

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Meronk, who this year won the Italian Open over the Marco Simone layout that will stage the showdown against Team USA in just under two weeks’ time, certainly felt hard done by.

The three-time DP World Tour winner admitted he was “shocked and angry” over the agonising call, but is now already turning those emotions into “fuel and motivation” for his next run of tournaments.

“We have the picks to make the right team but there’s not one person in golf who doesn’t feel for Adrian Meronk,” Bjorn, Europe’s 2018 winning captain, admitted at Wentworth. “There really isn’t. I spoke to him last week. I feel gutted for him and I’ve been in that situation myself.

“You feel like you should be there but that’s how it is and as I said to Luke the day after he made his picks ‘now we focus on the 12 – that’s our job.’ I’m really convinced that Adrian will be there in the future.”

Many of a European persuasion have argued that Lowry was a contentious pick, given the Irishman had not recorded a top-ten in any event since February before his inclusion and Donald’s assertion that his wildcard choices would be based on form.

Bjorn, however, has pointed to his own selection of an out-of-sorts Sergio Garcia over an in-form Matt Wallace at Le Paris National, where the Spaniard justified his place by claiming three points.

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The Dane believes Lowry is the exact type of character Europe need to wrestle back the Ryder Cup trophy in Rome.

“Shane makes other people better,” Bjorn said. “We can sit and talk about going strictly on performance and about who should be there. I picked Sergio in Paris for a lot of the same reasons and I think Shane played better than Sergio did in 2018.

“People walk into a team room that make the team better. He’s in a fantastic space in his mind and when he’s there he just makes the environment with all the others a lot better. This isn’t purely just a performance based thing and that’s why you have the picks.”

Colsaerts concurs.

When asked what determined the wildcard selections, the Belgian said: “It’s a combination of everything, guys getting along and you look at all the aspects of how to build a team together and I think we’ve done that quite well.

“We’re really happy with the bag of experience we have in Jon, Rory, Rosey, Tommy now and we’re happy with the way these young guys are playing, whether it be Ludvig, Bob, Sepp. It’s a very organic team, the guys get along great and some of them are playing really well so it’s looking quite promising.”

On Meronk’s disappointment, Colsaerts stressed: “It was very difficult and all of us felt really sick to the stomach for him because we knew he played well, almost made the team on points and he’s been quite successful over here but every time there’s one or two phone calls that are painful to make and this time it’s Adrian. We all felt really bad for him.”

Ben Parsons joined bunkered as a Content Producer in 2023 and is the man to come to for all of the latest news, across both the professional and amateur games. Formerly of The Mirror and Press Association, he is a member at Halifax Golf Club and is a long-suffering fan of both Manchester United and the Wales rugby team.