Ryder Cup Leadership

Paul Azinger shares his thoughts on his leadership approach in pulling together a Ryder Cup team with The Athletic:

When Paul Azinger took over as the captain of the United States team ahead of the 2008 Ryder Cup, the Americans were at an all-time low.

They had lost three straight Ryder Cups for the first time ever, and Azinger’s 12-man team eventually included six rookies.

Azinger’s crew went out and crushed the Europeans at Valhalla in Louisville, Ky. Azinger won acclaim for his unconventional approach to the biennial competition between the best players from the United States and the best from Europe. Azinger created a “pod” system, in which he grouped players into four-man mini teams that stayed together throughout the three-day event. (He wrote a book about the process titled “Cracking the Code.”)

I love the Ryder Cup. I also find it to be an especially interesting lens through which to look at leadership. Golf, by its nature, is an individual sport. There is no one else to blame for a bad shot. (Although who hasn’t tried to blame a bad lie or a surprise gust of wind for a shank?) And yet every two years some of the best individual golfers in the world must come together and form a cohesive team.

Ahead of this year’s Ryder Cup, which starts on Friday, I called Azinger to talk about exactly that.

This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

There’s such an inherent contradiction between golf as an individual sport and the Ryder Cup as a team event. What was the biggest challenge that you had to figure out or solve in that regard?

My goal was to figure out how to get 12 guys to bond in a span of about three or four days to go play their best. I started to realize that it was impossible to get 12 guys to bond. So I ended up creating these four-man pods, these four-man teams, because it was easier for four people to bond.

I copied it from a Navy SEALs concept of team-building, which is where you take large groups and break them down into smaller groups. And then I took it a step further by using like-personality types. I observed their personalities. I had Dr. Ron Braund with me, who really helped me. We understood the personality styles and types that we were looking to identify, whether they were dominant/controlling or steady/supportive or influencing/relaters. Just through observation. They didn’t fill anything out. Once we told Ron who these personality types were, he put them together creating green-light, caution-light and red-light personality types that you don’t want together.

We tried to get all green lights together on our four-man teams, and that was our secret. It was very structured and it worked.

I read that you came across this Navy SEALs idea through the wonderful habit of not changing the channel and you stumbled across a show about it on TV.

I watched a documentary — I don’t know if it was on National Geographic or Discovery. But I was interested in how they took the larger groups and made them into small groups. I just immediately thought about the Ryder Cup. Instantly.

Payne Stewart and I used to talk about the Ryder Cup all the time and try to figure out how to create more continuity because every captain does his own thing. Europe’s not like that. Everybody on the European side does pretty much the same thing. They have the same formula. We don’t.

I think this concept made it easier to pair players, and the players did truly bond. I put all the onus on them because they’re professionals, and I let them do their thing. The only thing you’re really able to do as a captain is create an environment. You hope it’s a good one and it’s one that gets the most out of them.

I wanted them to be confident. I wanted them to be sure of themselves. That was me messaging and then I just let the pod system take care of itself.

They strategized among themselves who was going to play alternate shot, who was going to play best ball. They were all empowered within their little four-man groups, and I think that made a big difference. They told me who would play alternate shot and who would play best ball in their pods. It was brilliant.

Why was empowering them so important to you?

I kind of did it at the last minute because I had so many choices from who to pick from who were good personality types. It gave me another chance to re-explain to the players how we were doing it and then I was able to say: “I’m going to empower you. I’m going to give you ownership. I’m going to let you pick who fills out your pod.”

So the three guys that I had in each pod picked the fourth player. They’d all run through a wall for each other.

Stay in the know by selecting your interests on The Athletic:

The pods picked Hunter Mahan, they picked Chad Campbell and they picked J.B. Holmes.

Sorry to cut you off, but can you take one pod and explain to me what the personality type was, why they were in the same pod and what you mean when you say they picked the fourth person?

I gotcha. So I picked Steve Stricker as a captain’s pick as the ninth man on the team. Then we had three three-man teams we created where we had the green light personalities together.

The next step was, who is going to fill out the last spot for each of those three-man teams? I decided to call the aggressive pod first. I called all three of these guys individually: Justin Leonard, Anthony Kim and Phil Mickelson. Those three together, I gave them a list of six players that they could choose from that I thought were playing well enough and were green light personality types for their pod. I told them I wanted the three of them to call each other and get back to me in an hour and let me know who they want to fill out their pod.

They ended up picking Hunter Mahan, so I got to call Hunter and say: “Look, man, this is how we’re doing it. I’m never taking you out of your four-man group unless there is an injury or illness. You guys are going to prepare together, have a strategy together and those three guys could have picked a number of players and they picked you, Hunter.”

Now those four guys love each other, just like that. That’s how that worked.

I think I misunderstood initially. I thought you had already picked all the players for the team. But they picked Hunter Mahan not to be just in their pod but to actually be on the Ryder Cup team. Almost like a captain’s selection.

Oh yeah.

Same with Steve Stricker, Stewart Cink and Ben Curtis. Those three guys all had made the team. That was the steady/supportive personality group, and I let those three guys choose between Rocco Mediate, Scott Verplank or Chad Campbell. I told them: “I’m giving you ownership of your pod. I’m going to let you who fills out your group. You can choose from these three players.” And they chose Chad.

Paul Azinger, right, celebrates with Justin Leonard after winning the 2008 Ryder Cup. (Photo by Richard Sellers / Sportsphoto / Allstar via Getty Images)

The pod thing is what made you famous as a Ryder Cup captain. But the part I find most interesting is the personality part of it. How did you arrive at that point where you said: “Instead of trying to match skillsets, I want to match personalities.”

I completely ignored the skill set part. I figured they were all massively talented players.

I asked Ron Braund to help me and I explained to him the Navy SEALs concept. He was curious because he doesn’t know anything about golf. He said, “How are you going to put them in their small groups?” I said: “Well, we usually put like games together. Long hitters with great wedge players. Stuff like that.” And he asked me: “Have you ever considered putting similar personality types together like Myers-Briggs?”

It probably was three months later and we talked more about it and I decided that was how I wanted to do it.

It was really Ron who wanted to do the personality-type thing. And I didn’t even know how to explain Ron to people. I told people he was my runner or my shrink – I don’t know what I called him. But he was really my assistant, and I would say to him: “Man, I’ve got to say something to Anthony Kim right now.” And he’d say: “Well, you’ve got to challenge that guy. Go challenge him.” You had to challenge one guy and encourage the next.

So I walked up to Anthony Kim and I looked at him and said: “Bro, I thought you were going to show off for me today. You’re showing me squat.” He was like: “Relax, man. They’re not going to beat us.”

I think that was the biggest nuance that’s never been duplicated or repeated. I heard for a while after that Mickelson was in the team room. He loved what we did. He was using biorhythms and all this weird stuff to try to get foursomes together. Just crazy stuff. Nobody has ever really put players together again by personalities again.

Europe is bonded by nationality and small groups: the Spaniards, the Swedes, the Irishmen, the Englishmen. They play together, and that’s an advantage. They’re bonded already in small groups. We weren’t.

You once said: “Whenever I got in a situation or had to respond to something that was negative I ran stuff through him a lot. All week he rode with me in the cart, just to make sure my messaging was correct.” Give me an example.

I didn’t say much to players during the rounds, but when they got in trouble, I did.

I had dinner one night with J.B. Holmes before the Ryder Cup, watching “Sunday Night Football.” He’s quiet. He finally just says: “Man, I hope somebody pisses me off this week, Zinger.” I said: “How come, man?” He goes: “If somebody pisses me off, I’ll kick their ass.”

The first afternoon, he was out there and I’m in the dining room getting a drink, watching it on TV. My radio goes off and it’s Olin Browne. He says: “You’ve got to get down here. J.B. is in trouble.”

I was watching it on TV and I noticed after Olin called that Dan Hicks on the broadcast was talking about Lee Westwood shooting dirty looks at J.B. Holmes.

I got in the cart, high-tailed it down there and he was in the right rough on nine by the time I got there. He was walking 100 miles an hour. I said: “Hey, man, slow down here a little bit.”

I walked about two or three yards away and then I stopped and said: “Hey, by the way, they’re talking about Westwood shooting you guys dirty looks on TV.” He said: “Are you s—— me?”

It was on. They came back and almost won it.

Everything you did seemed to be on the individual level. And yet what ended up happening was creating this team atmosphere and camaraderie. It almost sounds like a contradiction in some way.

It’s all kind of counterintuitive when you think about it, but you’re right. I hadn’t really considered that.

In the end, we had three four-man teams. We didn’t have one big 12-man team – but we did. It’s like how infielders practice together, linebackers practice together, in other sports.

Now that you’ve had a real chance to reflect back on that experience, what was the best or coolest thing you learned about leadership looking back on that experience?

I learned that if you apply solid principles, you can go in completely inexperienced and lead 12 guys. They respected me, I feel, from the get go, but I believe they loved how I communicated with them and how candid I was with them.

I think my lack of experience as a leader was somehow trumped by my ability to be a people person. Ron said I had a high EQ: emotional quotient. When I communicated to the players, I was articulate and clear and I let them all know: “This is how we’re doing it.”

I feel like my lack of experience as a leader, which was zero, was trumped by the style I chose, the information I sought and I ended up having great players. The main thing is I feel like we created the greatest environment for those guys to have success, and they did it all on their own. There was no guesswork. But I would never shy away from a leadership position thinking you can’t do it. You just have to apply proven, solid principles. That ended up being the key.