He’s Not Returning as Ryder Cup Captain

Describing the role as “torture” at times, victorious Ryder Cup captain Jose Maria Olazabal ruled out the possibility of staying on for the 2014 competition at Gleneagles.

The Spaniard returned to Europe on Monday night, cradling the gleaming golden trophy and still reveling in Europe’s stirring rally over the United States at Medinah on Sunday.

Spain’s King Juan Carlos and tennis star Rafael Nadal were among those who sent Olazabal messages of congratulations after the 14½-13½ win that kept the cup in European hands.

Poulter now has the best winning record of any European who has played more than two Ryder Cups and his passion for the event has seen him described as the “modern-day Seve.”

“He will be a wonderful captain for sure,” Olazabal said. “But he will need another 12 players just like him.”

Olazabal, who has been surviving on “two or three hours” of sleep a night, will return to Spain and start answering some of the 100-plus messages left on his phone following his flight back from the U.S.

“The phone has been really hot — out of all the messages, there is one that stunned me a bit,” he said. “The King of Spain just rang me a few minutes ago. He was pretty much like me, over the moon. That was a nice one.

“Everyone looked at each other and understood the importance of this cup in this man’s life. At some stage during the week, you looked at this guy’s eyes, and they were just how they were when he played. Every time he went out with Seve into the storm, everybody saw these two men were very special and how big a deal this cup was.”

Colsaerts was one of four players in their 20s in Europe’s team, along with Martin Kaymer, Rory McIlroy and Francesco Molinari. With the likes of Luke Donald and Graeme McDowell still having plenty of Ryder Cups left in them and young players such as Thorbjorn Olesen of Denmark and Matteo Manassero of Italy considered stars of the future, Europe looks well stocked.

“You don’t know what the future will bring — who would have thought we would have players like Rory or Nicolas seven years ago?” Olazabal said. “That’s the beauty of the European Tour. It always produces great players.”