After making things interesting for a few hours during Sunday’s singles matches, the United States Ryder Cup team once again experienced defeat at the hands of their European counterparts. Unlike previous years, you can’t say that “on paper” the Americans had a clear advantage over the Euros. Rocking a top three power trio of Jon Rahm, Rory McIlroy and Viktor Hovland, the Euros posed a massively formidable challenge on their home soil. Commentators pointed to match ups and course set up as tipping the playing field slightly in the European direction, but Golf Channel commentator and former Ryder Cup captain, Paul McGinley, kept returning to one strategy that he felt really made the difference. Time and again McGinley pointed to engaging the heart as the most important strategy for eliciting the finest play out of the European squad. And the primary method of engaging the heart was through invoking the spirit of Seve.
On opening day, Seve’s presence was loudly proclaimed when fans unfurled a colossal Seve banner that covered an entire section of bleachers next to the first tee. On Golf Channel, McGinley revealed to his fellow commentators that one of Seve’s old Ryder Cup jerseys hung in the Euro locker room to further inspire and engage the hearts of the players. If these invocations of the spirit of Seve were not enough, McGinley revealed that on the reverse side of the European logo adorning the left breast of the player’s shirts was an image of the great golfing Spaniard. The image of Seve literally covered the player’s hearts, as if his spirit was speaking directly to their hearts. When McGinley spoke of the significance of engaging the hearts of the player’s, he was not just paying lip service. For some, all of this may have seemed a bit melodramatic, over the top, or even a bit loony.
Yet no one could argue that the European team didn’t come out on fire. Inspired by the spirit of Seve, they were performing signs and wonders. They were chipping in and holing long putt after long putt. At times, they were literally chuckling and shaking their heads in disbelief at how well they and their teammates were playing. This is not to say that the disembodied presence of Seve Ballesteros hovered over the golfers manipulating them into great play like they were golfing marionettes. However, whether you call it group mind or collective consciousness or “being on the same page,” the European team designed, assembled and harnessed a spirit of greatness and excellence, symbolized by Seve, that became manifest in their exceptional play. At times, it all seemed shockingly pagan.
When the match ended and the Euros were victorious, most of the players pointed to playing for their teammates, not wishing to let them down. Playing for their country, for Europe, for past European champions, for the tradition of the Ryder Cup, all of it came to be symbolized in the spirit of Seve and they felt it in their souls. They played not for individual glory but for completely selfless reasons, for a spirit that brought out their best and allowed them to achieve something that none of them could have attained acting individually.
It is not unusual for people to talk about spirit when they talk about sport. They talk about team spirit, or the spirit of the game. Outside of sports, though, what are we all playing for? In this era of deconstruction and dismantling, are the spirits that animate our lives ones of cooperation, tradition, striving for a higher purpose and bringing out the best in one another?
If there is something 