Thomas Bjorn revels in the Ryder Cup glory that will sustain him for a lifetime

Only now can Bjorn finally reflect on his achievements in leading Europe to Ryder Cup glory

There’s a plush double bed in the London hotel room where Thomas Bjorn is doing his final round of interviews as Europe’s Ryder Cup captain, and there are times during our interview when he looks like he would be quite content to leap into it and sleep for a lifetime. Wednesday will be his first day off in several weeks, and Bjorn has planned out the day in great detail. “I have absolutely nothing on,” he says. “I’m just going to sleep. And I’m looking forward to getting up and having nothing to do.”

You’d have to say Bjorn has earned his day of repose. Since regaining the Ryder Cup for Europe on Sunday afternoon in Paris, he’s been wondering how he would feel at this point: exhausted, exhilarated, empty? Turns out it’s a mixture of all of these. “The one thing I’ve learned over the years,” he says, “is to enjoy it while it happens. Early in my career, when I won tournaments I never enjoyed those moments, and then it becomes quite flat afterwards. So on Sunday, I very much enjoyed the last hour and half. Enjoy it while you’re in the middle of it, and also make sure you’re ready to move on.”

There are sleep rings around his eyes, lines on his face, a weary languor to his gait: all the hallmarks of a man who has given everything he has. Equally, though, he knows that the glory of the last few days will sustain him for a lifetime. Europe went into the 42nd Ryder Cup as clear underdogs, but after three halcyon days at Le Golf National emerged as clear 17½-10½ winners, Bjorn emerging as a master of his craft to compare with the likes of Paul McGinley, Bernhard Langer and Seve Ballesteros before him.

For his part, Bjorn is keen to downplay his own claims to genius. He’s acutely aware that had a few key moments gone the other way, then right now it would be his opposite number Jim Furyk being hailed as a sage and himself being fitted out for the hairshirt and the clown outfit. Obviously he’s seen the stories and the recriminations emanating from the American camp over the last couple of days: Patrick Reed’s broadside against the team management, the revelation that Dustin Johnson and Brooks Kopeka almost came to blows during the competition. But he’s reluctant to stick the boot in to American when they’re down.

“Jim’s a pretty clever guy,” he says. “And he had some really clever people around him making decisions. Patrick had an idea in his head of what he was going to do, but in reality Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth were always going to play together. That couldn’t come as a surprise. Sometimes it’s just down to the other team playing better. And there’s no doubt we did play better.”

That said, some of Bjorn’s decisions will stand the test of hindsight. Pairing Francesco Molinari and Tommy Fleetwood for all four sessions on the first two days proved a masterstroke, as they won all four of their matches. “They grew in strength through the whole week,” Bjorn purrs. “On Saturday afternoon there was a little niggle in the back of my head: am I pushing them too far now? For Tommy, probably a little bit. Frankie kept going. I got caught up in the bromance as well, I think.”

Thomas Bjorn realised Francesco Molinari and Tommy Fleetwood were an important duo for Europe (Getty Images)

“Sometimes these things work out. Like with Rory and [Thomas] Pieters [at Hazeltine in 2016]. There’s always been pairings that stand out, and when they come along you’ve just got to ride them. But that doesn’t mean they’ll be a great pairing next time. Their careers will move, they’ll move into different places and there will be other team-mates and you have to make sure it’s not about two or four, it has to be about all 12.”

Only now, with a little bit of distance, can Bjorn finally reflect on just what an exhaustive, exhausting experience it has been. And when he finally rouses himself from his slumber, he will watch the 2018 Ryder Cup back on tape, trying to see things he missed the first time. “I’m going to watch it back at some stage,” he says. “I want to see all the shots. I have lots of things I remember, but they all blended into each other. I don’t have that overall view of what happened. It was all so quick.”

Only a few humans on earth can give any sort of insight into the utter intensity of captaining a Ryder Cup team in competition. The pressure. The spotlight. The incessant decisions. The way it consumes your life. During the three days of competition, did he ever get any time to reflect? “No,” he says firmly. “You come back to your room quite late, and you fall asleep almost immediately. Then you wake up two hours later and you’re like: OK, what now?”

Captaining Europe has been Bjorn’s life for the last two years. Now, once the glow of victory has subsided and he has had a couple of months off, would he ever consider doing it again? “I don’t think I should do it again,” he says. “It’s for somebody else to take that job. Padraig [Harrington, the favourite to captain the European team at Whistling Straits in 2020] will be a brilliant captain, there’s no doubt about that.”

But as far as the 2016-18 Ryder Cup cycle is concerned, that – pretty much – is that. Bjorn will continue to take an interest, of course, he will, but when he wakes up on Wednesday morning with nothing in the diary, it’s tempting to wonder whether he’ll feel a strange and acute nostalgia for those two years when the Ryder Cup was the centre of his world. Will he miss the job?

“Yes,” he says immediately. “That whole week – as difficult as it is – was also one of the greatest weeks of my life. How can you not miss it? But we’ve always had a strong belief that it moves on to the next guy. Whoever that is will be decided in time. So I think that’s it for me.”