Luke Donald exposes European team to VR crowd abuse in bid for Ryder Cup success

Luke Donald insisted exposing his players to crowd abuse via virtual reality was just a small part of his grand plan for Ryder Cup success.

The European captain issued his players with headsets that play insulting messages as part of their preparations for a potentially-hostile atmosphere at Bethpage Black this week.

Donald has also employed actors to heckle players during the build-up to the event in further attempts to desensitise them to the vagaries of a raucous New York crowd.

Yet Donald, who is attempting to repeat the triumph he oversaw in Rome two years ago, feels too much has been paid to this particular issue with plenty more having gone into his planning.

Donald said: “I think my job as captain is to prepare the guys for every scenario.

“Obviously there’s a bunch of us in our team that have experienced away crowds – maybe not New York – and we’ve certainly talked about it as a group, what you’ve learned, what you think you might have done well, what you think you might have changed.

“The crowd factor is certainly one aspect that I’ve been looking at but I’ve been trying to look at this from a very different angle and that’s just one element of the preparation that’s going into kind of making sure that these guys are ready.

“When we came up with that idea, it was just one idea in a multitude of ideas to get these guys ready.

“At the beginning of a qualification you expect there to be a bunch of rookies that have not played a Ryder Cup before but we actually have a team that has quite a lot of experience being together.”

One source of advice that is likely to be cut off from Donald this week is from his good friend Michael Jordan.

Donald first met the Chicago Bulls great when he studied at Northwestern University and became regular golfing partners.

Jordan has become a familiar face at Ryder Cups over the years and Donald expects him to be firmly in Keegan Bradley’s American camp.

“I’ve known Michael for a long time,” Donald said. “I got to play some golf with him even at the end of my college career, so back in the early 2000s, with being in Chicago. We had some mutual friends.

“He loved to play golf with good players and I was lucky enough to be put into the group and we formed a friendship. We live very close to each other in Florida now and remain good friends.

“Michael is also very close to Keegan and I’m sure Keegan has maybe leaned on MJ a little bit as well over the last year.

“He’s not going to specifically give me advice this time around. It’s nice to have someone that is a legend of their sport, the greatest ever, quite arguably, to sit down occasionally and pick their brains.

“I think he’s here supporting but I think he will have a USA hat on as well.”