While speaking on Golf Channel after the European Ryder Cup team was announced, Paul McGinley spoke about how much times have changed since he played in the Ryder Cup.

The Irishman said, “back in our day, there was quite a bit of alcohol consumed.”

When he was the Ryder Cup captain in 2014, he said that the players wouldn’t drink whatsoever.

McGinley then told the story of the 2004 Ryder Cup at Oakland Hills, where the European team won 18.5 to 9.5, which was the largest margin of victory in Ryder Cup history.

“I remember one of the backroom staff coming in and telling us on Saturday night, so this was before the Sunday, that we’d consumed 72 bottles of wine already by Saturday night and they had to go and reorder. This was while the matches were still on! It’s not like we were getting drunk every night, far from it, but everyone would have had one or two, maybe three glasses of wine every night, it was normal.”

It’s safe to assume that this year there will be less alcohol involved. However, Eamon Lynch did add that Luke Donald had his “own wine label at some point” and that he could “just ferry it in and get a discount”.

“We had consumed 72 bottles of wine, by Saturday.”

Paul McGinley recalls how a ‘different’ kind of fuel powered @RyderCupEurope to a record-breaking Ryder Cup win at Oakland Hills in 2004 🍷🍷🍷 pic.twitter.com/G5Gef50wnx

— Golf Today (@GCGolfToday) September 4, 2023

Article originally appeared on: Golfwrx.com