Cracking the Code Book Excerpts

The Challenge:


"As Americans we honor the kind of individual greatness that golf spotlights.  Every other year, however, we attempt to lay individualism aside and come together as a team, when the twelve best American golfers compete with Europe's twelve best for the Ryder Cup.  Many professional golfers who have played in Ryder Cup competition will tell you the pressure to win for our country is greater than at any other tournament, even the majors."  (Page 3)


"Unfortunately, too few American pros knew what winning a Ryder Cup felt like.  We lost at The Belfry in 2002 and got humiliated in 2004 and 2006.  In 2008, for the first time, we were underdogs.  Now my job as Ryder Cup captain was to create an environment where our guys could bond and thrive as a team - and be standing on the right side of that razor-thin line on Sunday evening." (Page 18)
 

The Revamped Selection Process:


"Losing so badly in recent Ryder Cup competition presented me with a great opportunity to make fundamental changes to the well-established system.  Had we not gotten our butts kicked in years past, I probably would have met more resistance to my ideas.  But as is the case in business or social settings, great challenges open the door for even greater innovation." (Page 18)

"This was a wholesale change in the way America approached the Ryder Cup, and wholesale changes do not become successes by fiat.  They required broad-based support.  I would spend the better part of two years building allies." (Page 33)


"I was asking for three changes in the Ryder Cup qualification and selection system: limit the time period for qualifying to one year instead of two; base the qualifying on money earned rather than top-ten finishes; and give the captain four picks instead of two." (Page 38)


"I knew we needed to take the hottest players in the game at the time of matches, and the system as it stood did not necessarily recognize those people.  If a player won five times in the off year, he could be playing terrible by the time of the matches and still make the team.  I knew.  I had been there." (Page 39)
 

The Four-Man "Pods" Based on Personality:


"Years before the PGA of America asked me to be 2008 Ryder Cup captain, I was considering how I might build and lead the team. . . . I started watching a documentary on how the navy turns raw recruits into SEALs, the most effective and feared fighting force ever assembled.  Between segments on special weapons and tactics training and 'drown proofing' the troops, one of the officers explained the strength of these Special Operations Forces.  'We break the men into small groups,' he said. 'That's the core.  Those guys eat, sleep, and train together until they know what the others are thinking.' " (Page 22)


"Interesting concept, I thought.  Small groups.  Tight bonds." (Page 22)


"If you want to bring the Ryder Cup team together, maybe you have to break it apart." (Page 23)


" . . . when you're talking about that razor-thin line between winning and losing at the highest level of competition, you look for every edge.  As captain I had only so many variables I could control, and pairings were one of them.  So if one guy played better with a partner who could fire him up, and another played better with a partner who was less animated, then I was going to give them that." (Page 72)

"The more I thought about it, the more I realized that the most successful pairings were, indeed, players who had a lot more in common than golf." (Page 66)


"After a little jumbling and shuffling around, and several phone calls to players already on the team, I soon came up with three three-man teams.  Then I took my list of twenty possible picks whose profiles we had considered, and imagined how each would fit in the system.  Just like that, every player on the list made sense.  I went from not wanting any of them to wanting all of them, once I saw how and where they fit in our plan.  It was at that moment that I knew the pod system was going to work." (Page 84)
 

Communication Based on Personality Type:


"Two years earlier I would have told you that Ron's advice was a bunch of psychobabble nonsense.  But as captain I had only a few variables I could control.  The message was one of those.  And the way I delivered that message had to change, depending on who I was addressing." (Pages 11-12)


"What you say to someone and what they hear are often two different things.  Not only is tone and expression just as important as what you say, but also the timing of your message can influence your relationship with the listener for a long time to come." (Page 101)


"I knew I couldn't say the same thing to them that I had said to Anthony Kim, which was, 'You're not showing me squat.'  I needed to say something to them that would play on their steady demeanor.  So as they walked up, I said, 'Hey, I've got good news and bad news: the bad news is, you've made a ten on this hole.  The good news is, you've only lost one hole.' " (Page 119)