It won't be 'rinse and repeat' in Cup clash says Luke

EUROPEAN captain Luke Donald insists the defence of their Ryder Cup will not be “rinse and repeat”, despite his team featuring an unprecedented 11 members of the victory from two years ago.

- By CARL MARKHAM

There were no real surprises in his selections of Jon Rahm, Shane Lowry, Viktor Hovland, Ludvig Aberg, Matt Fitzpatrick and Sepp Straka to join automatic qualifiers, Masters champion Rory Mcllroy, newly-crowned FedEx Cup winner Tommy Fleetwood, Justin Rose, Bob MacIntyre and Tyrrell Hatton.

That brought together all-but one of the players who triumphed 16½-11½ in Rome and even the odd man out, Rasmus Hojgaard, is a familiar face as he replaced his twin Nicolai as the final member of the team.

Retaining 11 of the previous team is a record for the Ryder Cup, beating the ten by Great Britain and Ireland in 1973, and while that continuity will be a benefit, Donald knows a tournament on foreign soil presents a different prospect particularly somewhere as hostile as Bethpage in New York.