Captain Rose gears up for Team Cup challenge

Justin Rose says he will learn more than any of his GB&I side at next month’s Team Cup in Abu Dhabi, as the Englishman prepares to captain a team for the first time in his professional career.

Rose will act as a Playing Captain for the Great Britain & Ireland team in the second edition of the competition, a three-day match-play contest against Francesco Molinari’s Continental Europe side. The event serves as a key warm-up to help DP World Tour stars prepare for the 2025 Ryder Cup, which will be held at Bethpage Black in New York next September.

“This is obviously the first opportunity for me to captain a team,” said Rose.

“It's going to be an awesome experience. Everyone's going to want to win, but I think it's going to be about creating the camaraderie and creating that environment just to free everybody up, so they can get the best out of themselves.

“That's something that works for me, so I'm going to try and at least take a little bit of, I think, what works for me preparation-wise and blend that into the team.

“But you've got to realise that you're dealing with a bunch of different characters, so I think for me, it’s going to be the biggest learning curve for anybody – I'm going to learn the most out of this week, rather than any other players.”

While this marks Rose’s first stint as a team captain, he is no stranger to playing a leadership role within Team Europe’s Ryder Cup dressing room.

The 2013 U.S. Open champion has played in six editions of the biennial contest and was the oldest member of Team Europe at last year’s Ryder Cup at Marco Simone Golf & Country Club in Rome, where he contributed 1.5 points to help Luke Donald’s side reclaim the trophy.

“I think I will be the oldest player playing on the team, so that generally comes with a bit of experience,” he added.

“You don't want to sort of overpower the team either, you know, because everybody's in that team for a good reason. They've got their own attributes, so you can't make everybody do it the same way – it's going to be about learning the team quite quickly and learning their characters.

“That role has already started, to be honest with you. These weeks we are out on Tour together – they are valuable weeks just to start to spend a little bit of time with the lads, so it’s not just ‘okay, what do we do now, now it’s January, so let’s figure this out.’”

Earlier this year, Tommy Fleetwood, last year’s GB&I Captain at the Team Cup, told Gulf News the concept of reintroducing a Ryder Cup warm-up event – reminiscent of the Seve Trophy, held by the DP World Tour from 2000 to 2013 – emerged after Europe’s heavy defeat at the 2021 Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits. Determined to bounce back stronger, players and leadership sought ways to better prepare for future contests.

With the new competition helping Europe regain victory in the Eternal City, Rose believes next month’s event will provide the perfect springboard to build camaraderie and identify potential Ryder Cup pairings.

But don’t be fooled into thinking there won’t be a competitive edge.

“I think this event is huge in terms of overall camaraderie,” he said.

“Of course, we want to beat the European team, and they’ll be looking at us and thinking the same, so there will be a bit of needle. But I think we all understand the Ryder Cup is even bigger.

“I don’t think anything will get in the way of that. I think we all realise that it’s a great opportunity for Luke to kind of have an umbrella view of what's going on and start to see some chemistry and camaraderie between potential pairings, but collectively, who thrives in this environment, you know, whether it's on the European side or the GB&A side.

“From a Team Europe point of view, that's a huge opportunity to get some data on guys.”