The Ryder Cup, Disney & the Power of the Flywheel
- PG Geldenhuys
- Mar 25
- 4 min read
Updated: Apr 10
Everyone likes a winner, hey. Hell, winners like themselves. And the more you win, the easier it becomes. It’s a habit. When my short game goes to sh*t, my whole round suffers. Golf is a cruel mistress that way. On the flip side, I go through spells of excellence, and once things click, it feels like you can’t miss a putt or fairway. That’s what makes the game addictive.
When I’m fit and in an early morning habit, my cycling improves exponentially – and it becomes easier every time I get on the bike.
These are all examples of flywheels, I guess. Jim Collins nailed it. Once you cotton on the cyclical repeatable steps that drive you forward, it’s all a matter of gaining some momentum. Allow me to illustrate from the disparate world of team golf, superhero movies and those true-life superheroes: The Springboks.
Building a sustainable model for high-performance teams is an art and science. It's not random – it's intentional, deliberate, and strategic. Three seemingly unrelated examples highlight this perfectly: Europe's dominance in golf’s Ryder Cup since the 1980s after decades of also-ran status, Marvel Studios’ strategic creation of its cinematic universe, and Rassie Erasmus's relentless pursuit of South Africa's third Rugby World Cup. Each illustrates the power of Jim Collins’s "flywheel" concept, and each offers actionable insights into creating enduring success.
The European Ryder Cup Template
Starting in the 1980s, Europe redefined Ryder Cup leadership by adopting a systematic, data-driven template. They created succession planning, meticulously crafted mentorship pairings, prioritised form over reputation, and fostered a unified team identity. Leaders such as Tony Jacklin, Paul McGinley and Luke Donald carefully built teams where collective strength outweighed individual reputation, transforming diverse talents into a cohesive unit, embracing a shared identity, and ultimately generating unstoppable momentum. They are going to the US this year with the express goal of breaking a cycle of away losses going back a decade… and they might just do it.
Marvel’s Cinematic Flywheel
Marvel’s cinematic universe mirrors Europe's strategy. Initially starting with individual superhero movies, Marvel methodically built toward a unified "Avengers" event. Marvel’s template involved meticulous planning, selecting the right talent over big names, and prioritising storytelling coherence. By carefully interlinking diverse narratives and characters into one cohesive identity, they harnessed the "flywheel effect" – every film success feeding into greater momentum, turning individual successes into collective triumph. A great example is the “teaser” at the end of each movie, and the way characters were introduced prior to them getting their own movie thereafter. The lesser-known actors eventually all became global superstars, to a degree that Marvel now struggles without these stars. Side note – post the Endgame finale, they seem to have fallen into a bit of a doom loop…
Rassie Erasmus’s Springbok Blueprint
Similarly, Rassie Erasmus employed a focused, aggressive approach in building South Africa's World Cup-winning rugby squad. Erasmus emphasised deep strategic planning, data-driven player selection, culture-driven alignment camps, and transparency. His squad-building flywheel – fuelled by rigorous performance analysis and adaptability – rapidly gained momentum, culminating in their decisive victories in 2019 and 2023. With World Rugby wanting to shut down the “Bomb Squad” tactics, Erasmus is already way ahead of the game, and has expanded his strategy to a whole team approach, where entirely different, equally competent teams can be fielded with different strategies on any given day.
Connecting the Flywheel Concept
Jim Collins explains that enduring success isn't a sudden event but the accumulation of consistent, disciplined actions – a flywheel steadily gathering speed until achieving unstoppable momentum. Europe’s Ryder Cup approach, Marvel’s cinematic universe, and Erasmus’s rugby strategies illustrate this brilliantly:
European Ryder Cup: Built momentum by embracing a collective identity and succession planning.
Marvel Universe: Gained power through interconnected stories, purposeful planning, and disciplined execution.
Springbok Rugby: Accelerated through tactical selections, team cohesion, and strategic clarity.
Contrast this to unsuccessful "big-name" picks or rushed movies – these approaches failed to create the consistent momentum Collins advocates.
The Marvel Contrast
While Marvel patiently invested years in character development before uniting its heroes, competitors rushed toward quick franchise-building, sacrificing coherent planning for immediate impact. Similarly, Europe's Ryder Cup victories contrasted starkly with occasional U.S. team failures, often caused by prioritising reputation over form.
A Note on the Doom Loop
When you’re not strategically building momentum through consistent and coherent steps, you find yourself facing headwinds and difficulty. This leads to erratic and inconsistent decision-making (think Tom Watson in 2014) and derailing your own progress by tinkering with your formula. Marvel, as a proxy for a wider Disney, has found itself derailing from its core mandate to its core customer by leaning into WOKE messaging, and results have been poor. It's been awful to watch, the rise from grace was swift and decisive. The US golf team, after poor results on their last outing, and due to the disruption caused by LIV golf, is once again making poor strategic decisions around their leadership, while the Europeans are enjoying a clean run to the cup with a settled leadership team and key players finding form at just the right time. The Springboks are beautifully on top, and instead of complaining about test workload, they are looking for more assignments in 2025, as they build incomparable player depth ahead of a busy 2026 and 2027. Long-term planning meets short-term tactics, and Rassie is still your man!
PG’s PRO TIP:
Use these insights to define or refine your leadership "flywheel". Remember, success isn’t instant; it’s earned through relentless incremental gains.
AI Prompt for Building Your Flywheel:
"Using Jim Collins's flywheel concept, help me clearly articulate a flywheel model for my team or organisation. Outline the key components, identify incremental actions required, and suggest how each action can build on the last to create sustainable momentum."
Start your flywheel turning – and keep it moving.
What’s your next strategic move?
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