How Luke Donald went from snubbed as captain to genius, two-time leader of Team Europe

FARMINGDALE, N.Y. — When Luke Donald originally was passed over to be 2023 European Ryder Cup captain, it wasn’t the first time that someone had chosen poorly.

Some 25 years earlier, the Englishman applied to Stanford University and didn’t get in. He later learned it came down to him and another golf recruit, Jimmy Lee.

“He went on to great things on the PGA Tour,” Donald deadpanned of Lee, a golfer who never made it to the big time. But Donald grew to appreciate the bright side. “Without Jimmy I wouldn’t have gotten to Northwestern.”

That is where Donald majored in art with a concentration in oil paintings and met his wife, Diane, at what he described as a seedy bar on the outskirts of Chicago, during a Halloween party in which he went as a cell phone and she was dressed as Jennifer Lopez.

Donald became the European Ryder Cup captain when Henrik Stenson joined LIV Golf and was relieved of his duties, and he guided his 12-man team to a decisive 16½-11½ victory over the Americans in Rome in 2023. Donald is the first person, for either side, to serve as captain in consecutive Ryder Cups since Scotsman Bernard Gallacher did so for the European team in 1991, 1993 and 1995. No American has served as captain in each of back-to-back Ryder Cups since Ben Hogan in 1947 and 1949.

Donald, 47, grew up in England between London and Oxford about 30 miles from Heathrow Airport and got his start in golf not far from his home at a par-3 course. But it was a family timeshare in southern Spain that came with golf privileges that sparked his love for the game. The age to join Beaconsfield Golf Club in the south of England was 12 but seeing his raw promise he was admitted at age 9. By 15, he bagged his first club championship. When Donald didn’t get into Stanford, the men’s golf coach at the time, Wally Goodwin, who had previously coached at Northwestern, suggested Donald go there.

“It was a leap of faith,” said Donald, who came to the U.S. for the first time at age 19 in 1997.

He won his first college title, coincidentally, at Stanford Golf Club and went on to win 13 more times, including the NCAA Division I Men’s Individual Championship in 1999. Before turning pro, he was part of the last victorious Great Britain & Ireland Walker Cup team to win on U.S. soil in 2001. 

Donald hoisted five trophies on the PGA Tour and claimed victory another seven times on the DP World Tour, reaching world No. 1 in May 2011 when he holed a birdie putt on the first playoff hole to win the BMW PGA Championship just 30 minutes from where he grew up. He celebrated the occasion with family and friends, drinking until 4 a.m.

“Something special about saying you’re the best in your sport,” said Donald, who held the top spot in the ranking for a total of 56 weeks.   

Donald owns an impressive 10-4-1 career record in the Ryder Cup, including a clutch win on Saturday in 2012 at Medinah during a four-ball match against the U.S., who were staging a late rally. Trailing 1 down, Tiger Woods stuffed his tee shot at the par-3 17th and Donald stepped up and knocked his inside him to halve the hole in birdie. The Euros hung on for the win and the next day Donald went out first in singles and beat Bubba Watson 3 and 1 to kick start the European comeback in what became known as the Miracle at Medinah. 

With the likes of Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter and Sergio Garcia in the captaincy pipeline, Donald was resigned to the fact that he may never get a chance to be at the helm of a Ryder Cup team, but everything changed when Stenson bolted for LIV and he received a second chance.

“Suddenly, it’s 14 months of trying to figure out how to give my team the best opportunity for success,” he said. “At heart, I’m a shy, introverted person. Now I had to lead these 12 guys. It was a little daunting at first. It kind of engulfs you. You think about it all the time.”

He says having a small ego helped him to do the job. He was willing to learn at the foot of those who held the job before him, seeking out Bernhard Langer, his first Ryder Cup captain, Paul McGinley and Tony Jacklin, among others, to glean insights into what had worked for them and how to create the best environment for his team to succeed. He orchestrated a team gathering around a firepit during a pre-Cup training session that created a brotherhood and bond between the players. On the first night of Ryder Cup week in Rome, he asked all the players to be in their room between 5 and 5:30, where their wife or significant other handed them an iPad with a personal video starring the most important people in their life.

“It’s not rocket science,” Donald said. “It’s very basic human nature.”

From delivering his opening speech in Italian to making several par 4s on the Marco Simone course potentially drivable to leverage their team’s strengths based on data analytics, Donald pushed all the right buttons.

“It was the most special moment of my career,” Donald said. “I celebrated the ’23 Cup for a good month.”

Even before the celebration began in earnest, his winning side began making overtures for him to captain the next Cup at Bethpage Black. Donald will look to become just the second European captain to win back-to-back Ryder Cups, joining Tony Jacklin, who did so in 1985 and 1987.

While Team Europe has won four times on foreign soil since 1987, Donald knows this will be a different animal. Europe has lost three of the last four Ryder Cups contested in the U.S., and none of them have been close.

So, Donald, who has been part of the victorious side in six of his seven Ryder Cups – only losing in 2021 as a vice captain – has been busy doing what he does best. That is making a meticulous study of past failures and trying to crack the code for winning a road game. His outside-the-box measures include hiring a comedian to taunt players and giving his squad virtual reality headsets to simulate the intense pressure and atmosphere and potential crowd abuse they will face at Bethpage. If he can push all the right buttons again and lead Europe to victory, he will go down as one of the greatest captains in Ryder Cup history. Not bad for a kid who lost out on a college scholarship to Stanford to Jimmy Lee and may have never captained the Euro side had Henrik Stenson not chosen money over honor.