Lee Westwood and Ryder Cup pals can't wait to take on 'best golf team ever assembled'

23 September 2016 07:38

Ryder Cup captain Davis Love drew a quick response from Lee Westwood after referring to his side for next week's contest at Hazeltine as 'the best golf team ever assembled'.

"No pressure there then lads!" Westwood wrote on Twitter alongside a link to the interview Love gave to the Fairways of Life radio programme.

Speaking about the approach required to avoid an unprecedented fourth straight defeat to Europe in the biennial contest, Love said: " Tom Kite always told me, you know what's better than two up? Three up.

" Let's just try to roll these guys and I think if we go out there with that attitude, like he was saying, we are the better team, let's show them, let's go out there and show off, that's a big part of it.

" And then just having confidence. We don't have to do anything superhuman, we're a great golf team. This is the best golf team maybe ever assembled.

"If we just go play our game, like coach (Bill) Belichick (of the New England Patriots) told us a few weeks ago, ignore the noise, work hard, do your job, everything else will take care of itself.

"That's easy to say. It's the Masters, it's just another tournament, just go play four rounds like you always do. Well yeah that's easy to say, it's hard to do.

"We just need to. continually I'm telling my assistant captains, tell these guys the same message day after day after day. Just do your job, just play golf and all the results will take care of themselves. We've just gotta look for one day at a time one session at a time and stay focused and not try to win too hard."

In 1967, US captain Ben Hogan introduced his team as "the finest golfers in the world" and saw them cruise to a 15-point win in Texas. In 1989, Ray Floyd described his team as the "12 greatest players in the world." The match finished 14-14 and Europe retained the trophy.

Earlier this week, Westwood had questioned whether Tiger Woods will have a positive impact in his role as a Ryder Cup vice-captain.

Woods has not played competitively since August last year following a third back operation in the space of 19 months, but will be at Hazeltine as part of Love's backroom staff.

Despite winning 14 majors and spending a record 683 weeks as world number one, Woods lost 17 of his 33 Ryder Cup matches and Westwood told ESPN: ''I don't know what impact there will be from having Tiger around. They [the US team] have always struggled to find a partner for Tiger that's been successful.

''He could have an adverse effect in the team room. People have always seemed to try to do too much when they have partnered him. It might be different if he's one of the vice-captains - you don't know.''

Source: PA