Ryder Cup: Influence of Cowen could be crucial to Cup hopes

The Grange driving range in Rotherham is as far removed from the splendour of Gleneagles as one could imagine.
Europe's Lee Westwood, right, and Pete Cowen during a practice session at Gleneagles.Europe's Lee Westwood, right, and Pete Cowen during a practice session at Gleneagles.
Europe's Lee Westwood, right, and Pete Cowen during a practice session at Gleneagles.

The Scottish course that hosts the 40th Ryder Cup is dressed to impress. The greens are pristine, the flowers on the drive up to the clubhouse flourishing, and there is not a stone out of place across the entire acreage of the enchanting inland course.

Contrast that with a journey to The Grange that cuts through blue-collar Rotherham, onto a driveway with overgrown grass on either side, into a car park littered with broken glass and then down crumbling steps to a driving range hidden away from view, and you get the idea.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Yet it is there, at this most unassuming of golfing hotspots, that four members of Europe’s Ryder Cup team this week occasionally head to work on their game.

Why? Because it is the base for two of the continent’s finest golf coaches, Pete Cowen and Mike Walker.

The latter is the new kid on the block, and the former’s protege.

Walker counts European Ryder Cup men Lee Westwood and Thomas Bjorn in his stable and he arrives at Gleneagles for his first taste of the great duel.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

His mentor, Cowen, has players under his wing at the Ryder Cup for a ninth time.

Westwood and Darren Clarke were his first students at Valderrama in 1997. Henrik Stenson and Graeme McDowell are the men under his tutelage at Gleneagles.

“It’s a very proud moment to have a third of the team under us,” says Cowen. “We’ll get some stick, mind, if they don’t win. Funny how no-one ever says anything when you win.”

As impressive as it is to have such an influence on Paul McGinley’s team, a more remarkable statistic is that 11 members of the 12-man European team have at some stage or another been coached or guided by Cowen.

The odd man out? French rookie Victor Dubuisson.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

So why has Cowen been so successful? For more than two decades he has had a reputation as the gruff Yorkshireman who gives praise begrudgingly. Some of the biggest names in golf know not to expect a pat on the back from a tutor unafraid of reputations.

When it comes to Ryder Cup week, however, Cowen has to play a different role, that of an encouraging psychologist as much as methodical swing doctor.

“The players are much more stressed than they are in a regular event, simply because they rarely play team golf and don’t like to let people down,” he says. “I was out in the US last week just to calm Graeme and Henrik down.

“That’s when you can do the most work. It’s impossible this week. This week is all about not letting them get too stressed with themselves.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“They could play great golf but if their partner doesn’t then they lose. It’s a completely different dynamic to what they’re used to.

“This being my ninth Ryder Cup I know what to say to the players, and more importantly, what not to say to them.”

His trip to the States last week was the 14th time Cowen has crossed the Atlantic this year.

The success of his players necessitates more American tournaments for him to work at, but an estimated 250,000 air miles in 2014 alone is starting to wear.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Every year he gets closer to 60 Cowen says will be his last, but with more than 200 winners on the top two tours he is finding it difficult to give in.

“While ever players are still winning I’ll keep going,” he continues. “Mike’s got a lot of players now; Danny Willett, Eddie Pepperell, Dave Horsey. I wanted to reduce my players and Mike always wanted to start doing what I do, so it’s worked out well. The younger guys tend to radiate towards Mike while the guys I’ve had for a number of years have invariably stayed with me.

“We still get them coming down to The Grange. Louis was there recently, Padraig Harrington, Simon Dyson, Stenson, McDowell and Colin Montgomerie have all been down.

“It’s a real thrill for the members and paying punters who are there working on their own game to see these guys in that environment, learning like they are.”

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

One name being linked with Cowen’s is golf’s biggest star, regardless of Rory McIlroy’s stunning summer. Tiger Woods’s recent split with Sean Foley means the handful of elite coaches of which Cowen is a member, have found their names mentioned as the next to try and cure the ills of the 14-times major champion.

“I’ve never been approached,” says Cowen. “Every time I go to the US people start putting two and two together and think I’m going to meet Tiger. I never deny it – I like to perpetuate the myth.”

Injury means Woods is not at Gleneagles this week, but Cowen will be there, as ever-present and as crucial a member of the Ryder Cup cast as there is.

Related topics: