Sam Torrance has been named as Europe’s fifth and final vice-captain for the Ryder Cup at Hazeltine in September.
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The 62 year old Scotsman will bring not only a wealth of experience to Clarke’s backroom team – having played for Europe on eight consecutive occasions between 1981 and 1995 – he will also bring the knowledge of what it takes to be a winning captain in the biennial contest, having led Europe to victory at The Belfry in 2002.
Clarke added: “There is nothing in terms of the Ryder Cup that he hasn’t seen, done, or been part of since he first played in the contest 35 years ago and I know that experience will be vital to everyone involved with Team Europe this time round”.
“Sam thankfully accepted my invitation to join the team”.
US Ryder Cup captain Davis Love III is happy his contingent of players are in form as he continues to prepare for Hazeltine.
“Sam has been a very good friend of mine for a long time”.
In 2002 at The Belfry, after a year’s delay for the 9-11 tragedy in NY, he skippered a team with several players out of form to a historic win with a final day singles triumph over Curtis Strange’s far stronger U.S. outfit. He was very, very thorough. “I played with him in my first professional tournament”.
“He was very thorough and everybody that played under him enjoyed the week because it can been hard at times, but Sam put everybody at ease and made everyone comfortable”.
“I don’t expect anything to come up, but if something does and I need his wisdom and guidance for, I can’t think of a better man to have there”.
“The fact that he’s nearly in the team pleases me greatly because he’s a European Ryder Cup stalwart”, Clarke said of Westwood. The legendary football manager had done likewise before Europe defeated the United States at Gleneagles in 2014.
“We’re a group of 24, 26 people going on a mission, and you have to make sure that you have good team chemistry”, said Love, who was also on-hand at Baltusrol to conduct a special Q&A with Chase Sapphire Preferred card members. “At the moment I don’t really have any plans to have him in there [the team room]”.
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Among the other things Love discussed with us are what it’s like having Tiger Woods as an assistant captain, the heated behind-the-scenes ping pong, er, table tennis battles in the USA team room, and, of course, his memorable relationship with Sammy the Squirrel.
