The hotel team room at Medinah on Friday night in 2012 was supposed to be a quiet place to regroup. Team Europe had just lost 5–3 in the opening session of the Ryder Cup. Spirits were low, and the players expected another calm pep talk from their famously gentle captain, José María Olazábal . Instead, as Graeme McDowell remembers it, the room went silent for a different reason.

“He just pretty much ripped us a new one,” McDowell told Smylie Kaufman on The Smylie Show . “Jose… he’s normally a lover, not a fighter. He’s just one of those guys who’s going to give you a hug every time he sees you. But we sit down in the team room and he chews us out for our behavior on the golf course that day.”

Olazábal’s words cut through the team like a cold wind. “He basically said, ‘one pla

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