European team vice-captain Paul Lawrie was being quarantined in his hotel room at the Ryder Cup after contracting a virus with team officials hoping it hasn’t been passed to the players.
The Scot, one of Darren Clarke’s first three choices with Thomas Bjorn and Padraig Harrington as his assistants, fell ill on Wednesday morning and was told by doctors to stay away from the team. It meant he missed the official dinner on Wednesday night.
“I’m totally gutted because I’m never ill,” said Lawrie. “I went to course on Wednesday but came straight back and slept virtually all day.
“I saw doctor in the afternoon who said I had virus and it was best to stay in room for a couple of days away from the team.”
He had recovered to attend the opening ceremony yesterday but fellow Scot and vice-captain Sam Torrance admitted that they simply had to hope it had not been passed to any of the 12 team members.
“Paul’s not good at all, I’m sure it’s been great for his diet, but he’s in his room,” said Torrance.
“There’s nothing we can do, we didn’t know about it until he got sick, so if anyone else has got it, it’s too late. But there are no signs yet.”
Torrance is back to give his vast experience of involvement in 12 Ryder Cups as player, the winning captain in 2002 and as vice-captain, but he says that Clarke can rely on his own experience.
“Darren doesn’t need much help to be honest,” said Sam. “I remember his acceptance speech when he won the Open at Sandwich was just magnificent, I didn’t expect that from him.
“He remembered everyone, he was very unemotional and it was fantastic. If you can do that when you’re won the Open, which I’ve never done, this’ll be like a piece of cake for him.
“Everything’s just right. Every captain brings his own ideas but it’s very subtle and it seems like nothing’s changed. Everything’s where it should be and the communication is good.”
Sam has sympathy with fellow vice-captain Ian Poulter, brought in “early” to do the job.
“This is tough for him, because he wants to play. If you gave him a set of clubs he’d be on the first tee tomorrow morning.
“He really shouldn’t be with us he should be playing, but he’s been injured and isn’t playing so he’s getting a taste of vice captaincy.
“In 1999 I learned more about my role as captain in that one match than I did playing in eight Ryder Cups. There’s just so much going on that you don’t know about as a player. You’re cossetted and stuff is getting sorted for you and you don’t even see it. What goes on behind those 12 people is amazing.”
As captain, Sam continued, dealing with the ever-changing circumstances of live matches is the toughest thing.
“I’m not in favour of everyone having to play the first day,” he continued. “I think everyone should play before Sunday but that’s not even written in stone.
“The hardest thing is making decisions to change things to rectify something or push ahead further as the matches unfold because it’s always changing.
“When I arrived at the Belfry in 2002 I had the order for Friday morning, for Friday afternoon, for Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon and the singles order, all done. Not one of them stayed the same, I’d ripped up every one of them almost in the first hour.
“As captain you need to be thinking about this, you’ll have formulated a plan and it’ll not be far from where it was meant to be. But you need to be flexible.”
