Luke Donald’s final score as a Ryder Cup captain needs more time, but he’s certainly on track to getting an ‘A’ after Europe’s Friday morning foursomes sweep. More impressive, however, has been how the Englishman has handled everything else so far this week—specifically, one cringeworthy question from a reporter on the eve of the event.
It involved an awkward—and, frankly, ridiculous—question about Donald’s wife, Diane, involving the phrase “sleeping with the enemy.” And although the former World No. 1 handled it in a classy manner, he clearly didn’t love the inquiry. Here’s the uncomfortable exchange.
Q. Sorry to hit you with this on the eve of the tournament, but following exhaustive investigations, it’s come to our attention you’ve got an American wife. And the phrase sleeping with the enemy comes to mind. So I just wonder how tricky is it going to be this week for you? I wonder if you talk in your sleep.
LUKE DONALD: Not tricky at all. My wife’s parents were born in Greece. She has a lot of strong European roots, and my number one fan. There’s quite a few guys on our team that have U.S. wives. It’s really not a problem. They are 100 percent behind us.
Q. She wants Europe to win?
LUKE DONALD: Of course.
Um, duh. He also could have mentioned that the two have been married for SIXTEEN years so Diane has been to plenty of Ryder Cups and participated in countless “OLE, OLE, OLE, OLE” chants through the years while rooting on her husband. Anyway, here’s video of the squeamish Q&A:
Wow. We’re all for ‘fun’ questions, but that’s not it. And we’d like to enter this as Exhibit A that there is way, way too much time leading up to this event actually starting.
