Thomas Bjorn says the 2018 Ryder Cup will “be probably the greatest Ryder Cup ever”
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Thomas Bjorn on the 2018 contest: “When you look at it as a whole my feeling would be that it would prove to be probably the greatest Ryder Cup ever.”
If an interview with CNN’s Living Golf, Thomas Bjorn told the programme he thinks Le Golf National is the perfect Ryder Cup venue – and given the two potential teams heading to Paris, he believes it could be the greatest Ryder Cup ever.
“It’s the first time in Europe we really are in one of the great cities and we’re going to try and deliver what I think is probably the most spectacular sporting event in the calendar,” the future Ryder Cup said. “It just presents itself as a perfect Ryder Cup venue and that was always the feeling amongst players in Europe.”
Going behind the scenes with the recent Ryder Cup Captain, who most recently captained his European team to victory in the EurAsia Cup, CNN talk candidly with Bjorn about his approach to captaincy, the venue, and who he thinks will come out on top of this year’s event.
In the interview, Bjorn outlines his philosophy and approach during the build-up to the Ryder Cup, as well as whether he would consider the captaincy as the pinnacle of his career.
“It’s one of my proudest moments because it’s not something that I worked to get, it’s something that the players wanted me to do,” Bjorn said.
“To get that bestowed on you is something that you have to be very honoured about doing, because I’m really, really looking forward to this and I hope I can deliver in all the promises that I make, but also deliver a winning European team.
With acknowledging that the Americans will come in considered favourites, Bjorn told CNN that he’s looking for players who can ‘win at any cost’ and to embrace the unique experience of representing Europe to drive the team to victory – admitting he believes his 12 best players will still come out of the contest as champions.
“Guys who are good at match play for me, are guys that have this unreal determination to win at any cost. They go out on the golf course and they don’t care how they play, they don’t care, they just look and feel superior in the way they have this total determination to, “I’m going to win my match, no matter how I play.”
“I want it to be about the 12 guys in the team. It’s not about me, it’s not about everybody around, it’s about the 12 of them. It’s their time to shine. It’s their opportunity to be the best that they can be. It’s one of the proudest moments in their lives and I want them to walk away from the Ryder Cup being happy with the experience they had and say it was one of the best weeks of their lives no matter the result.”
”I always feel like we have so much potential in Europe. Maybe we’re underdogs but we’ll go in and do our utmost and we’ll do it with the players that we have. I very much believe that our 12 best players are going to come out victorious because I wouldn’t be in this situation if I didn’t think that was the way it was going to go.”
Watch the video below for the full interview!
