O
n Saturday at the Gtech, there was only one topic of conservation (except how awful Manchester United are these days). Ditto at my son’s football on Sunday morning. Ditto with the family in the afternoon hours building up to the 12 singles matches that we all felt were a foregone conclusion, but which turned into one of the most agonising, exciting and ultimately triumphant evenings of sport in my lifetime.
On Monday morning the sports editor of this parish asked if I might like to write a few words on the contest and I was (despite the evidence of the weekend) a tad sceptical that readers would want yet another article about the Ryder Cup. This is why he is an editor and I am not. The piece spawned one of my biggest mailbags, readers sharing their stories, what they had nibbled and drank (I was on bottles of Erdinger, nachos and M&S dips), and how they’d averted a sense of panic as the Americans came back.
A series of names came up in the correspondence too, which probably won’t surprise you: Shane Lowry (what a putt!), Rory McIlroy (supreme player, dreadful abuse), Jon Rahm (man or giant?), Ludvig Aberg (brilliant singles victory), Justin Rose (putter on fire!). But you know the name that came up most, a guy who shuns the limelight but who was — according to my correspondents — the most consequential of all? Luke Donald. The man described by Lowry in those moments of post-putt ecstasy as “the greatest captain in the world!”
