HAVEN, Wis. – European Ryder Cup captain Padraig Harrington is doing his best to win over American fans.
Throwing a few Cheesehead hats into the gallery doesn’t hurt.
Wearing Green Bay Packers colors goes over well, too.
The first foursome of Team Europe players to take to the first tee Wednesday morning at Whistling Straits – Sergio Garcia, Shane Lowry, Tyrrell Hatton and Jon Rahm – along with their caddies were sporting a Cheesehead hat, the calling card for the state known as America’s Dairyland.
As the pro-USA crowd roared its approval, the eight Europeans tossed the Cheesehead hats to assembled fans. It was a bit of the charm offensive Harrington wanted to tee up.
“Look, the crowds are great,” Harrington said Wednesday at the 43rd Ryder Cup. “Everybody embraced that, as you would have seen on the first tee.”
The team’s other two foursomes followed suit when they got to the first tee.
Harrington started thinking about his campaign of friendliness about two years ago, and with the COVID-19 global pandemic severely curtailing the number of European fans from heading over the pond to attend the match, his forward thinking could temper the hostility.
“Everybody is out here to get on well with the crowds,” Harrington said. “There’s no doubt about that. We obviously can’t sign autographs this week with COVID, which is something that traditionally we would do. These fans have come out and they’ve come out on a cold day.
“They’ve come out to watch us, and we want to give them something to watch.”
When Harrington was designing the outfits for Team Europe, it was suggested he include Irish colors to pay tribute to his home country. Harrington nixed that idea – “I’m not really into that sort of stuff,” he said – but wanted to acknowledge a different part of the world. So the Wednesday outfits were the gold, green and white of the Green Bay Packers.
“We think the colors turned out nice. We think the outfit looks really good and I think the players are pretty stoked out there that they’re doing something to show their respect for the local state we’re in,” Harrington said. “Look, it’s lighthearted. You want it that way in practice.
“It’s somewhat respectful of obviously the Green Bay Packers, and they were very much on board with this, so a bit of fun and we got a nice reception with it. That’s kind of what you want on the practice days. Obviously business starts on Friday, but, at the moment, the players are enjoying it and having a good time of it.”