The Team Cup brought an interesting duel between Great Britain&Irish team and the European Continental team. In the end, GB&I side celebrated in this duel, and the team captain Justin Rose can be the proudest of that. This tournament serves as a preparation for European golfers for a huge challenge in their career: this year’s Ryder Cup.
Edoardo Molinari, captain of Continental Europe, didn’t have much reason to be happy, but he paid his respects to the opposing team, which looked superior.
Molinari stressed that he made some mistakes, but he marks this experience as positive.
“Obviously disappointed with the week but we need to be fair – the GB&I guys played some great golf and they were better than us, on the greens especially, all week.
I think I probably could have done a slightly better job with the boys. They gave it all they had. Our side was maybe more inexperienced players in this kind of event but they are great guys and they did their best. The GB&I team was just too hard for us this week.”- he said, as quoted by European Tour.
Molinari on Hojgaard’s absence
The experienced Italian was without one of the most important players in his team: Nicolai Hojgaard, who was absent due to illness.
Although he doesn’t want this to be his justification, it is clear that when you do not have strong links in the squad, it is difficult to expect to be side by side with the opponent.
The Italian was not quite satisfied with the beginning of the weekend, but he didn’t want to spread pessimism, highlighting that there are many talented golfers in the European side who have shown this time that they’re ready for major competitions.
“Yeah, definitely not ideal. Thomas Björn should have been a vice captain, and I think he was a bit sick all week. A few things went wrong from the start of the week.
We missed Nicolai but to be fair, Julien showed up last minute and played some terrific golf. I’m glad the younger guys got exposed to this sort of environment, and yeah, we’ll be back in two years trying to win it back.”- he concluded.
Tennis World USA