European captain Paul McGinley urged his players to remember their team talk from Alex Ferguson ahead of the final day of the 40th Ryder Cup at Gleneagles.
McGinley invited the former Manchester United manager to speak to his team on Tuesday and will reiterate some of the Scot’s messages to ensure they do not squander a commanding 10-6 lead in Sunday’s singles.
“Everything I’ve been doing this week as captain has been working towards three or four key messages,” McGinley said. “Alex Ferguson wasn’t just picked out of the blue because I met him by chance or anything like that. He was picked for a reason.
“He was picked as a manager of a very, very successful football team that played at home very well, had a great record at home, were very good playing with the tag of favourites and the expectation on them. And I knew there was a lot of common themes he could relay to the players.
“A lot of the images that we have in the room are along the same message that I asked Alex to speak about. There’s a number of words, obviously complacency is one that really comes to the fore a lot.
“We’ve got a lot of really strong images in our team room and photos that have messages on the bottom of them and have been kind of doctored in a way to highlight it. One particular one comes to mind is right outside our team room, probably two metres by three metres and it’s a picture of a European rock in the middle of a raging storm in the ocean.
“The message underneath is ‘We will be the rock when the storm arrives’. And the storm arrived this morning. The American team came at us really strongly this morning and we did incredibly well to get 1½ points. Then our wave came again this afternoon, fresh guys obviously performed and got the job done.”
As a vice-captain at Medinah two years ago, when Europe came from 10-6 down to win, McGinley is well aware that the task of securing an eighth win in the last 10 contests was far from over.
“Complacency is a massive, massive word,” the 47-year-old Dubliner added. “We have a very strong team here. We’re playing at home. We have won seven of the last nine Ryder Cups. It’s easy to be complacent.
“We have another huge, graphic in our team room, ‘Passion has determined our past and attitude will determine our future’.”
McGinley's side have forged their lead with seven points from eight in the foursomes but just half a point from two matches by Ian Poulter, who had won 11 of his previous 12 matches in the contest.
“This is more than a one-man team,” McGinley said. “Ian Poulter has been a colossus in the Ryder Cup. He played a massive role today winning that half point with Rory.
“What he did those last few holes when we really needed him; when his game wasn’t as good as we’ve seen Ian Poulter in the past. . . to be able to stand up and do what he did, chip in when he needed to chip in, take the pressure off Rory on 18 to hit that wedge shot in as close as he did, that’s why he’s Ian Poulter.
“Even when he’s a little bit off-form, he’s able to produce like that. That’s why he’ll go down in history as one of the greatest-ever Ryder Cup players.”
