Luke Donald reduces Team Europe to tears with Ryder Cup welcome

The European captain was prepared to take a tug on the heartstrings of his team to get them fired up for the 44th Ryder Cup.

Johnny Percival

27 Sep 2023

Members of Team Europe were brought to tears by a touching gesture that greeted them upon their arrival at the team hotel in Rome ahead of the 2023 Ryder Cup.

When the 12-man team arrived in Rome on Monday, they were immediately given an iPad by team captain Luke Donald that was preloaded with touching messages from their parents, wives, siblings and children.

Each player was then sent to their room to watch the videos before the entire team met up to watch a compilation of the videos together.

The heartfelt gesture from Donald and the team's families was said to have reduced a number of the players to tears, with emotions clearly running high in the team camp.

Jon Rahm revealed that the team were overwhelmed with emotion, and had anyone else been in that room, it would have been hard for them not to feel the same.

He said:

"There were very few players not shedding a few tears on Monday afternoon. I can say that. If you guys were to watch it, it would make you feel a lot of the same emotions we felt."

"There were very few players not shedding a few tears on Monday afternoon. I can say that. A lot of it was family-related and the reason why all of us are here.

"I don't want to say too much more than that. But I think even for people that are related, it's going to definitely - if you guys were to watch it, it would make you feel a lot of the same emotions we felt."

Never one to disguise his passion, Rahm was also quizzed about his desire to prolong Team USA's wait for victory on European soil and unsurprisingly, he was eager to make them wait for as long as possible.

The Spaniard declared:

“Sure, it’s a big deal. You want to stretch the streak as much as possible. Hopefully, we can get into the 30s of years of Europe being undefeated here at home.”

Rahm currently has a 4-3-1 record in the Ryder Cup and was one of Team Europe's only positives to take from the mauling they received in 2021 at Whistling Straits.

And while he is eager to improve on his record this year at Marco Simone, he revealed that the team result matters far more than his individual record.

He added:

"Hopefully I can go 5-0 or 4-0 or 3-0, however many times I play. My intention is to go out there and win every single match. But I can go 0-5, and if the team wins I'll be really happy. As long as we win, I don't care. As long as we get to 14½ points, what I do doesn't really matter."

Currently sat third in the Official World Golf Rankings, Rahm is set to play a starring role in Europe's attempt to regain the Ryder Cup, and European fans will likely be hoping to see him play all five matches, however, as previously reported, due to the severity of both the heat and undulation of Marco Simone, Luke Donald won't be afraid to rest his biggest stars in order to get the best out of them for the Sunday singles.

Is Donald right to bench some of his biggest stars ahead of the Sunday Singles this week? Or should he be sending out his strongest players in every session to ensure Europe wins the Ryder Cup? Share your thoughts and comments over on the GolfMagic social media channels.

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