Ryder Cup 2018: How Le Golf National gave Europe their 13th man

The course played as much of a part in Europe’s victory as any of the other contributory factors you’ll read about

Perhaps it was telling that in the immediate moments after defeat was confirmed, when US captain Jim Furyk was coming to terms with a convincing defeat at the hands of the Europeans, that he made such swift reference to the course.

“I think the Europeans definitely did a good job on the golf course,” he said. “They know it pretty well. It was set up well, they thought, in their favour, right. It was a tight golf course. It's a wonderful golf course. A wonderful stadium, really.”

The Albatross course at Le Golf National has been an astonishingly good host for this biennial dust-up, an intercontinental tussle that so often takes the road most travelled but that is starting to venture out to try new things.

It is only the second Ryder Cup to be held on continental Europe, with Britain and Ireland hosting every European renewal barring the 1997 trip to Valderrama, where Seve Ballesteros captained the hosts to victory.

France did not have a representative of their own at this competition in terms of players, but the course played as much of a part in Europe’s victory as any of the other contributory factors you’ll read about.

America arrived in Versailles as the bookmakers’ favourites and they will also complain that they arrived jet lagged and ill, tired after a draining end to the season and the Fedex Cup playoffs. That said, eight of the European team were playing there too and they scrubbed up nicely for the big show. This felt like a failure to adapt.

Retrospectively it might be fair to say that pre-tournament talk focused too much on world ranking and not enough on suitability. The US boasted a historically-strong side in terms of world ranking and most other objective measures, loaded with superstars that represented the past, present and future of American golf.

Too many of them struggled to get to grips with the narrow fairways and testing rough of Le Golf National, however. The sumptuous techniques of Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth, both 25, saw them top-score for the Americans but at the lower end of the scale it was a depressing picture. The world’s best player, Dustin Johnson, failed to cope with the undulating slopes and longer grass of France and crumbled completely, memorably beaten by Ian Poulter in the singles and a shadow of himself all weekend. Tiger Woods won zero points from four games after a stunning comeback season and a week after his first tournament win in five years. Phil Mickelson was zero from two. Bryson DeChambeau, who fully earned his wildcard for his performances on the PGA Tour, was zero from three.

But perhaps that exposes the difficulties of the Ryder Cup. Eight players automatically qualify based on performances around wide, flat tracks on the American circuit - Arizona, Florida, Wisconsin - and are then dropped into France to fend for themselves. It’s not a hard life, it’s positively delightful, but to expect the same level of performance is naive at best, perhaps even ridiculous.

Poulter once again delivered for Europe (Getty Images)

There are questions, you suppose, about whether the Ryder Cup may lurch further this way. With high-powered American teams set to become a regular occurrence, judging by the terrifying talent in youth on this team, the European Tour know that there is a competitive advantage to ensuring courses can make life uncomfortable for their transatlantic guests. Should the same occur in Rome in 2022 then we may be seeing the beginning of a trend. It would not be the biggest surprise to see the Ryder Cup go the same way as Test cricket in the last decade, where home advantage takes a freak set of circumstances to overcome.

The Ryder Cup may have felt, at times, as if it was a foreign invention planted on French soil - and it did, with little or no reference to the competition even in the nearby towns and train stations - but the crowds were huge and impactful, even if they’d travelled from afar.

As Furyk noted, the ‘stadium’ of Le Golf National lent Europe their 13th man.

Europe triumphed in thrilling fashion (PA)

The legions of fans are a huge part of the Ryder Cup, one of golf’s most boisterous and well-supported events, but this is a rare course that puts those supporters front and centre.

A ‘stadium course’ like this allows the swelling ranks of supporters to surround every green and line the fairways. The first tee has garnered the most attention over the last few days, a magnificent horseshoe of noise that rises high above the tee box, but down the left and right the crowds were fifteen or twenty people deep and in the distance, over the water, the crowds packed around the first green and alongside the second hole. It was a scene continued throughout the Albatross Course.

On every hole, it seemed, there was a hillock or bank to offer a better vantage point for patrons and it becomes even more obvious in the cold light of the early mornings when many of those slopes were empty, waiting to be filled. The undulating terrain provides a brilliant venue for golf spectators, while the course design itself is ideal for matchplay.

“From a player’s perspective it’s a challenging golf course,” Paul Armitage, general manager at Le Golf National, said on Friday. “We don’t tend to have low scores here… it’s very much a risk and reward golf course.”

Europe were backed vociferously throughout the week (PA)

“Every hole has a stadium feel; you’re not in the middle of the trees or in flat areas stood behind people.”

But even way beyond the course being suited to matchplay and great for generating an atmosphere, it was a key factor in Europe’s win.

By both involving the crowd and making the American visitors uncomfortable, Le Golf National played its part. And it played host to a memorable European victory.