Paul Azinger stuck his head above the parapet, made bold demands over qualification and selection, and, lo and behold, became the first winning U.S. Ryder Cup captain of the 21st century. Peter Milligan charts the events at Valhalla and examines the role of the Chief.

The american team could have been forgiven for carrying an impending sense of doom into the 37th Ryder Cup matches. They had been thrashed by their European opponents in the last two meetings and were making the trip to Valhalla, just outside Louisville, Kentucky, without the world’s number one player.

Cut to scenes of the home side spraying champagne over victorious captain Paul Azinger’s head and it’s hard to imagine there was any doubt about the result.

Azinger himself deserves all the plaudits that came his way for the immense turnaround that saw the U.S. lift Samuel Ryder’s trophy for the first time in nine years. He took the job on the provision he could make as many changes as he saw fit. And he saw fit to change almost everything.

Team selection was overhauled to reward wins more than anything else, as well as giving him the luxury of four captain’s picks instead of the customary two. He also changed the format back to foursomes in the morning sessions and fourballs in the afternoon in an attempt to disrupt the recent Ryder Cup rhythm which has seen Europe gain an early advantage on the first day and either cling on or push on from there.

Perhaps the most telling gauge of his captaincy, though, was how he constantly played his men down as underdogs despite knowing they had a more than reasonable chance of winning. Not only did this take the pressure off them and pile it onto the Europeans, but also the tag of underdog invariably unifies a team—and the U.S. duly tapped into the spirit that has infused the Europeans over the last 20 years. Many observers have suggested this was partly down to Tiger Woods’ absence, but the astute decision-making of Azinger was surely the major factor.

Inevitably, Nick Faldo’s performance as losing European captain has come under the microscope. The six-time major champion, such a ruthless winner when at his peak as a player, was heavily criticised for the quirkiness of his leadership almost from the moment he was appointed more than two years ago.

His decision to overlook both Darren Clarke and Colin Montgomerie as wildcard picks left his team a little short of Ryder Cup experience and without a natural leader on the course. And refusing to replace Paul McGinley when he resigned in 2007 and going into battle with only one vice-captain at his side, double Masters champion Jose Maria Olazabal, seemed to leave him with too much to do over the weekend.

Faldo has always been a man proud to do things his own way and he seemed determined to carry that ethos into the Ryder Cup. But while Azinger rang the changes to put his stamp on the American team, Faldo’s approach seemed defiant and haphazard. In the end, his personality and love of “visualisation” failed to strike a chord with the European team whose senior players were sluggish throughout.

Even Sergio Garcia, whose form was outstanding on the PGA Tour this season, seemed subdued and under-whelmed by the whole experience. Faldo arrived at Valhalla proudly displaying his sheriff’s badge to the world, but his embarrassing speech at the opening ceremony took the shine away and set the tone for a weekend of European anticlimax.

The first day’s play at Valhalla proved to be decisive as the U.S. claimed a three-point lead that would never be clawed back by the Europeans.

The pairings put out by both captains played a huge part in this. While Azinger clearly had a definitive plan for the day, Faldo seemed confused in his selections. The partnership of Paul Casey and Henrik Stenson for the morning foursomes was particularly strange—an ideal fourball pairing, granted, but not one so well equipped for foursomes; and so it proved as they lost 3&2 to Justin Leonard and debutant Hunter Mahan.

For Azinger, it was the perfect start—one that gave his team the belief that they could press on and end their country’s recent Ryder Cup blues. Phil Mickelson and Anthony Kim claimed 1½ points and only the disappointing performance of Ben Curtis and Steve Stricker in the afternoon fourballs stopped the home side going through the day unbeaten.

A lot has been made of Faldo’s decision to hold back the big guns in the singles on Sunday, but in truth the destination of the trophy was decided that Friday.

Apart from his inspired cheerleading incursion into Louisville in search of the all-important ‘13th man’ on the eve of the match, the nub of Azinger’s success lay in the strategy he drew up some two years earlier for his 12 team members.

He built his team by doing personality profiles of three dozen potential players and grouping them accordingly. Once the identity of his ‘dirty dozen’ was established, he divided them into three groups of four.

The ‘aggressive’ personalities were Kim, Mickelson, Leonard and Mahan. The ‘Kentucky’ group featured home state boys Kenny Perry and J.B. Holmes along with Floridian Boo Weekley and Jim Furyk, while the ‘quiet quartet’ featured Steve Stricker, Ben Curtis, Stewart Cink and Chad Campbell. Each group had an on-course leader—Mickelson, Furyk and Cink—and they stuck together throughout three days of practise. Their pairings came only from within their pod and even in the singles they were sent out in blocks of four.

To foster team spirit Azinger gave the players ownership of their own groups. He also assigned an assistant captain to each group—Raymond Floyd got the aggressive bunch, Olin Browne had the Southern group (some wits suggested as an interpreter), and Dave Stockton was with the mild-mannered ‘grinders’.

Azinger, who said he based the system on what the Navy Seals and Special Operations forces use to create a stronger unit, rarely saw any of them hit a shot, relying entirely on his assistants for updates on how they were playing and who might need a lift.

The captain zipped over to the fairway at the treacherous par-five 7th after hearing Cink and Campbell had both dunked shots in the water during the opening session. “I told them there’s good news and bad news,” Azinger said. “The bad news is you just made a 10. The good news is you only lost one hole. Now they have everything to lose, and you have everything to gain—play the next shot. And they came back and won.”

This formula might well have appealed to Woods, had he been fit to play. Azinger said he would likely have been part of the Kentucky group, providing leadership and experience, perhaps being paired with Weekley so Perry and Holmes could play together. Furyk, admittedly something of a square peg in that particular hole, then would have headed up the calm, unflappable group. But no one bought into the scheme more whole-heartedly than the experienced Furyk, who hails from western Pennsylvania and came out with the priceless phrase when peace broke out on the Sunday night: “Panhandle, Alabama, Kentucky, it’s all the same thing.”

Prior to the 2008 match, it was felt Woods would distance himself from the whole exercise. But nothing could have been further from the truth as he maintained a barrage of text messages to Azinger and team ‘mascot’ Michael Jordan throughout the weekend.

“He was pumped,” Azinger said, cleverly involving the world’s greatest player in the interest of future U.S. Ryder Cup campaigns. “Tiger would have been into it [the pod system].

“To me it’s like a magic trick—if you watched it 10 times, you’re amazed each time, but the guy shows you how he did it and you say, ‘how the heck did I not see that?’, then, ‘oh my gosh, it’s so easy to figure out’. It should be so easy to see exactly what’s happening.”

Azinger refutes the suggestion he front-loaded his line-up when it came to determining the playing order for the Sunday singles. In reality, all he did was send the team out in units. The first four were restructured into Kim, Mahan, Leonard and Mickelson, the second four was Weekley, Holmes, Perry and Furyk, with Cink, Stricker, Curtis and Campbell taking up the rear.

“I told the guys it’s going down to 8, 9, 10 and 11,” Azinger said. “I told Furyk, ‘it’s coming down to you, buddy. Watch and see. I’m telling you.’ And it did.”

In the wake of being so comprehensively out-thought, Faldo’s captaincy—in particular, his apparent desire to do almost everything on his own—underlines how much the public perception has changed over the past 30 years or so.

Back in 1975, Arnold Palmer captained the U.S. team to a 21-11 victory over the British Isles at Laurel Valley, Pennsylvania while also playing on the team. It is hard to imagine this would ever be possible again, especially when consideration is given to the seemingly endless array of tasks and duties that a Ryder Cup captain now has to discharge.

In earlier Ryder Cups the role of the captain involved little more than picking the team and determining the pairings and order of play—decisions that were often made in discussion with his team-mates. Today the pressures are far greater—every decision is examined by the millions watching the event worldwide, not to mention the hyper-critical media circus that follows the event.

But beyond the talk of captain’s picks, pairings and home advantage, there remains one other outstanding reason why the U.S. won this Ryder Cup—and that is because of the exceptional way in which the team performed on the course. Whether this was down to Azinger’s motivational talks or the partisan support of the Kentucky crowd makes little difference. The fact remains that on the course, which in the end didn’t really favor either side from a playing viewpoint, the American players delivered in a way that they hadn’t since Sunday at Brookline nine years ago.

The live television coverage at times was like an American highlight reel, with putts being drained from everywhere and birdies made by the hatful. Despite his qualities, Azinger certainly has his team to thank for providing him with one of his great Ryder Cup memories.

At the moment of victory, he said: “I poured my heart and soul into it for two years, and my players poured their hearts and souls into it for a week. They deserved it. They brought themselves here and if I was the guy that helped organize it then I’m happy to be that. But those guys did it. They deserve the credit.”