Ryder Cup diary Short game key for Europeans?

By Steve Chappell (@CentenaryHGK)

After finishing for the morning on Tuesday, we took a trip out to see some of the players in action.

The fourth and seventh holes were where we headed, the fourth a nice par-3 and the seventh a 400-yard par-4 that plays over Hazeltine Lake.

Sitting there, what struck me and my colleagues was the amount of time the Europeans were spending on their chipping from around the fringes of the greens – all of them were dropping a load of balls and practising little flop shots and all sorts.

Short game is clearly something the Europeans have picked up on

There’s a fringe of one-and-a-half inch rough all around the greens complexes and the definition of them is as good as I’ve seen on a golf course in terms of the sheer consistency. Short game is clearly something the Europeans have picked up on and want to sharpen up on.

But it was all very laid back. In the lead group, Ian Poulter was geeing everybody up and the guys were signing autographs and having pictures taken at the crossing points. It was all light-hearted and relaxed.

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In terms of our daily routine, now things are heating up in preparation we’re up at 3.30am and in at Hazeltine just after 4am. We had a team meeting which all went pretty smoothly.

In a meeting, Chris addresses the room so everyone who is on shift – there were about 80 of us there – will hear from him about how the previous day went and if there was any feedback from any of the teams.

There hasn’t been any feedback thus far other than they’re pleased with the condition of the course. Anything coming back from the players is communicated through Kerry Haigh and he relates information to Chris. I don’t think there’s a direct line from Team Europe to Chris.

Chris will then give us details on the forecast, the timings for the day’s practice rounds and then outline any changes to what we may or may not be doing.

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There’s a real buzz about the place now. When we went out on Tuesday evening, there were a lot of people about and the attendance figure we heard was 35,000. At Gleneagles, it was around 20,000 on the Tuesday and that increased to 25,000 and then 30,000 on Thursday.

But it was all good-natured. They use an expression up here, ‘Minnesota nice’, as the people up here are all quite friendly and it doesn’t seem as raucous and loud as Chicago or it would be around New York. There are a lot of Europeans going about too, so it’s all pretty cool.

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