The Underdog Who Stole the Ryder Cup
- PG Geldenhuys
- Sep 29
- 4 min read
For every Scottie Scheffler, there are a thousand Shane Lowrys. Men who do well but don’t grab the attention or headlines. Except for Ryder Cup Sunday, as it turns out.
Take a bow, Shane, you beauty.
The 2025 Ryder Cup will never be forgotten. It’s a story about the most menacing of arenas, the most conflicted of captains, the most resolute of teams. It’s a tale of intent, of vision, of anti-fragility (yes, this is a thing, and I’ll come back to it later). It’s a story of Atomic Habits, of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, of big guns showing up when it mattered most, of the support cast being the real heroes. It’s a tale of hubris, of own goals, of luck, of focus.
There’s a reason I stood somewhat teary-eyed on the grandstand of the final hole at the awards ceremony, though. It’s not only that I got to witness all of this drama first hand, or that I got to do it because I’m married to the most amazing woman on earth, or that I was struck by the incredible luck of watching the world’s greatest players give their everything in the world’s greatest game in one of the greatest cities in the world.
It's because of the brilliant acknowledgement of the everyman, who stepped up to glory. It’s an underdog story for the ages, and it’s set in the dramatic context of five men:
The shining superstar, whose failure to launch would perplex a nation.
In his mirror, the unlikely antagonist, where adoration was replaced by insults.
In HIS shadow, the ignored other guy, who would step into the light.
Pulling the strings, with masterful attention to the 1% advantage, was the leader.
And finally, the predictable but-oh-so-avoidable victim of their mastery, a proud and good man who was sacrificed to the gods of ratings and money.
This was the 2025 Ryder Cup. This was golf’s greatest contest, played in the grandest of arenas, under the most adversarial of conditions. And boy oh boy. If sport requires true contests to entertain us, if it wants for personalities and narratives and comebacks and feel-good stories and class and character… then this one had it all.
And in business, we can learn a lot from it all. I’m going to irritate you a bit this week and throw a daily newsletter at you while it’s all still fresh. I hope that’s ok, and you’ll stay tuned. Because my bucket list trip completely delivered, I’m going to tell you why it was so good, and why it all matters.
For every Shane Lowry, there’s a Scottie Scheffler. And I’ll start with him.
Scottie doesn’t know.
The famous song from the silly movie Eurotrip came to mind this last weekend.
World No. 1, the most dominant player since Tiger Woods, 29-year-old Scottie Scheffler walked around Bethpage Black looking dazed and confused as he became the first player to lose all of the first four matches in the modern era. Even his box office pairing with fellow superstar Bryson DeChambeau faltered.
He’s a guy who has been world No. 1 for over two years. He won six times this year, he’s always in contention, and two of those were Majors. He is head and shoulders above everyone else in class, in consistency and ability. And yet… four out of four losses.
It was stunning stuff, and reaffirmed three trends from golf’s greatest team contest:
Having a dominant world No. 1 in your team is a demerit, not a plus. Think Tiger Woods in his dominant run (1 win out of 5), think Nick Faldo in his heyday (1 out of 3 while he was at the top). The 2020s are starting to look a lot like the early 90s or the 00s. There is no I in team, even if they are great guys like Scottie. And that brings me to point #2…
In the Ryder Cup, nice guys finish last. What you need is the Eye of the Tiger. Justin Rose. Tyrrell Hatton. Shane Lowry. And historically, Seve and Ian Poulter. In your face, contenders who mobilise their passion for the big moments and understand that it’s a war. Scottie Scheffler is the nicest of guys, humble and engaging despite his stature and talent. But it just didn’t seem to work this week.
Great players will falter in bad systems. Good players can excel in great systems. It’s up to the leadership to create those systems, and that, in the end, was the difference once again. Scottie’s failure can be traced back to his captain, but that post will follow later this week.
PG’s Pro Tips:
1. Watch out that you don’t over-rely on your obvious A-player.
2. Horses for courses, especially when it comes to sales. Killers have their place.
3. Talent isn’t enough. You need the right systems that support that talent.
It all comes down to the man in the arena. And that man, in this last edition of the Ryder Cup, was not the World No. 1. It was the World No. 2, the most popular player in the game, but someone who found himself cast as the villain in an extraordinary few days that tested the limits of patience and decorum. More on him in the next post.
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