Paul McGinley says the 2004 European Ryder Cup side that inflicted a record defeat on the Americans was fuelled by a generous helping of alcohol during the event at Oakland Hills.
McGinley was answering the question of whether professional golf today is as fun as it was during his time - with his thoughts being much more money and much less alcohol has somewhat taken some of the joy out of the game.
Comradery is something that McGinley feels is lacking from today's game, due to players travelling and staying separately due to having more money - but he says they're also more serious during events.
“Is golf as fun as it was 15 years ago? I think they’re making three times the money we were making,” McGinley said on Golf Channel's Golf Today show.
“But the comradery we had in the game back then - and maybe it’s because we weren’t playing for as much money as they are now and we weren’t flying around everywhere in our private jets and there wasn’t 50 Netjets sitting at the airport to take players home every night.”
Europe's 2004 record Ryder Cup victory
Golf today is a serious business but McGinley still says he was taken aback during his stint as 2014 Ryder Cup captain at how serious his team took things off the course while the event was ongoing at Gleneagles.
"I was amazed when I was [Ryder Cup] captain in 2014, nobody drank. I mean, nobody,” McGinley added. “I wasn't like, 'It's a Ryder Cup I'm not going to drink.' It was a case of, 'No, I'm not drinking, I don't drink when I play. It's not even a question."
Just a decade earlier, and the European team drank the bar dry at Oakland Hills even before the Sunday singles had taken place - with McGinley saying the staff had to re-stock the wine cellar by Saturday night.
“Back in our day, there was quite a bit of alcohol consumed, it’s fair to say, even during Ryder Cups," McGinley added.
"We had consumed 72 bottles of wine, by Saturday."Paul McGinley recalls how a 'different' kind of fuel powered @RyderCupEurope to a record-breaking Ryder Cup win at Oakland Hills in 2004 🍷🍷🍷 pic.twitter.com/G5Gef50wnxSeptember 4, 2023
“When we won by a record margin in Oakland Hills under Bernhard Langer, I remember one of the backroom staff coming out and telling us - on the Saturday night, so this is before the Sunday - that we had drank 72 bottles of wine already, and that they had to go and re-up the order. This is when matches were still on.
"It's not like we were getting drunk every night - far from it. But everyone would have had one, two, maybe three glasses of wine at night and it was normal. And nine, 10 out of the 12 players would do that.
"Obviously, it’s a changed atmosphere now on the course. When there’s alcohol involved, as you well know, there’s always a bit more craic involved.”
That team spirit obviously did the trick back in McGinley's day, as that 2004 team hammered America 18.5-9.5, representing the heaviest defeat for the USA since the event started in 1927.
