European Ryder Cup captain Padraig Harrington is boasting he’s managed to already get one up on his American rivals.
It’s not that Harrington has found a winning formula or been handed a Whistling Straits magic wand.
No, what had Harrington physically rubbing his hands in delight was revealing he’s managed to book the floor above their Stars and Stripes rivals in the official Milwaukee team hotel.
“I had a choice of locating the European Team on either the first floor or the third floor as the Americans had picked the second floor, so I made sure I chose the third floor as we are now accommodated above the Americans, so if there will be any noise it will be coming from the Europeans and filtering down to the Americans on the floor below us,” said Harrington, smiling.
“We are still working on our team room at the course and also still working on when you go to the official hotel that there will be a team room, a gym room, a room where you can go and eat. There will be a caddy room and an administration room.
“There will be also, and I am struck on seamstress but that is not the right word I am looking for. Noo, it’s a tailoring room. We’ll need a tailoring room. It’s just amazing the detail that goes into a Ryder Cup and where everything goes, and where everybody in the team is happy.”
In speaking of details, it was pointed out to Harrington that 2010 European Team captain, Colin Montgomerie even went to the trouble of measuring the length of the beds in that year’s host Celtic Manor Resort.
“Thankfully, I have not had to measure any beds, not at this stage,” Harrington said.
“I know Chris Wood was not in Monty’s team because if you had Chris Wood in the team, he would require a special length bed so you do have to look after every detail and Monty was right with that as if you properly attend to the detail, the rest follows.”
It has been just over a year (January 8th, 2019) since Harrington was officially handed the European Team reins and now with less than nine months to go, the triple Major winner’s focus is beginning to turn to helping promote the event, not that sport’s now third-biggest sporting event requires promotion.
“Very much for the first year it’s been a mixture of administration matters like team uniforms, the team rooms, the hotel and it is amazing the amount of detail you have to go into,” he said.
“Now that we are into the New Year it has turned a corner and it’s more about playing, the promotion of the Ryder Cup and media duties
“I finished my round on Friday and after undertaking some practice, I took a drive around the golf course undertaking some social media videos we will be posting over the next number of weeks.
“So, there’s that aspect to the captaincy and the European Tour are really good at social media and I enjoyed that even though it was an hour out of my time.
“There are some requests that are tiresome and some that are interesting, and you just have to manage it.
“There are some weeks when I am out on Tour that are Ryder Cup weeks and I don’t get to focus on my golf as I would like whereas other weeks are not about being the Ryder Cup captain and the Ryder Cup can be pushed to the background.”
Harrington has arrived in Saudi Arabia this week where he’s joined by Graeme McDowell and Shane Lowry for Thursday’s start to the second staging of the Saudi Invitational.
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