Thomas Bjorn has, like most home Ryder Cup captains, had the opportunity to be properly hands-on about how Le Golf National looks and plays this week, but he’s playing that down.
The vast stands seating 6800 at the first tee, he “impacted a little”. The course set-up itself, with some suspecting tighter fairways and slower greens than is usual, is the normal championship set-up for the annual Open de France played here since the mid-1990s.
Whatever, it’s the antithesis of the wide-open, largely rough-free set-up of Hazeltine two years ago that allowed the Americans to swing away without fear – as prime an example of “home advantage” set-up by a home captain as anything the Europeans have ever done.
This year, the Albatros course is going to play like the regular European Tour venue it is the last week in June every year, which is really only right and proper.
As for the monster first tee stands, far bigger than anything ever built before for the Ryder Cup and dwarfing the neighbouring stand for the 18th, was an opportunity they couldn’t resist, says Bjorn.
“I obviously had conversations with the people that are building the venue, but we thought (the first tee arena) was big in Gleneagles, it was certainly big last time at Hazeltine,” said the European captain.
“We’re maybe going to have 60,000 sitting down the first hole at some stage in the future. But there’s an opportunity, here, as well, because you’ve got the room, and I just think it’s going to be one of the most amazing experiences in any sport of being on that first tee.
“It’s not me that’s been standing there saying, I want it to look exactly like this and this big, because that’s not – that idea was on the table before I even got there, and then I’ve impacted it a little bit but not in any big way.”
As for set-up, Bjorn insisted he’d just asked for the same as the French Open.
“This golf course is very similar to what we are used to when we come here, and that’s probably more the thing that I like,” he said.
“There are guys on our team who have played a lot of French Opens. I don’t want them to show up and it’s a completely different golf course to what they are used to. This is very similar to what it is normally.
“So the fairway line are pretty much the way they normally are and the greens are where we have our green speeds in Europe. It would be strange if it was anything different when you came here.
“This is a tough golf course, to start with. I like the idea of a golf course that’s set up like a championship golf course. You’ve got to identify guys that are hitting the golf ball well.”
Bjorn has made a late change to the Europeans’ look, with the input of Spaniards Sergio Garcia and Jon Rahm, wearing yellow ribbons to to honour Celia Barquin Arozamena, the young European amateur champion from Spain shockingly murdered when playing on a golf course in Iowa.
“The golfing family extends way beyond what we are trying to do this week and those events in America with Celia being killed is something that’s hit everybody in the golf family, and especially our two Spanish players very much,” said Bjorn.
“We felt after a conversation from Ryder Cup Europe with Celia’s mother, that we would honour her this week.
“She was such a great prospect for the game of golf, but also a wonderful person. And when you speak to Sergio and Jon about it, they couldn’t talk highly enough about her.
“We felt like that was appropriate for the week.”
