Ryder Cup, Francesco Molinari vice-captain

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Francesco Molinari has been appointed vice-captain of Team Europe. At the first Ryder Cup in Italy there will therefore be no Italians on the field, except for wild cards or big exploits for Guido Migliozzi. Glass half full or half empty? Definitely half empty given what Francesco Molinari represents for Italian golf and what he represented for European golf five years ago (it seems like an era since Le Golf National 2023).

Francesco Molinari, Ryder Cup

At Marco Simone from 29 September Italy will go down in history for being the first country to have two brothers on the staff of vice-captains. In addition to Chicco, Edoardo has been part of it for some time, chosen by the estranged captain Henrik Stenson and confirmed by his successor, Luke Donald.

In addition to the Italians, the English will be able to make use of the Danish Thomas Bjorn, the Belgian Nicolas Colsaerts and the Spanish Josè Maria Olazabal. In 2010, 47 years after Bernard and Geoff Hunt (in 1963 they were part of the Great Britain team, only since 1979 the challenge is between Europe and the USA), the Molinaris at Celtic Manor (Newport, Wales) established themselves as the first brothers to achieve victory in the Ryder Cup ten months after giving Italy (in November 2009) the first World Cup in the history of Italian golf.

From club competitions through the Italian championships, up to the World Cup and the Ryder Cup, first as players, now as vice-captains. Dodo and Chicco started playing as a couple at the age of 7 in Turin. And now, together they will be behind the scenes at the 44th edition of the Ryder Cup.

Francesco Molinari, 40 years old from Turin, with a degree in Business Economics, played and won three Ryder Cups respectively in 2010, 2012 (in the USA, he drew with Tiger Woods in the singles match) and 2018 when, in Paris, he became the first continental player to win all five matches played, thus signing the new European record.

Molinari has written historical pages of Italian golf, also distinguishing himself as the first blue to establish himself in a Major, the oldest one, The Open, also in 2018 (in Carnoustie, Scotland), his golden year, also embellished by the exploit in the BMW PGA Championship (in Wentworth, England) and from the victory in the Race to Dubai (the order of merit of the then European Tour, now DP World Tour).

In his palmares he boasts eight successes between the DP World Tour and the PGA Tour, the last of which arrived in the USA in 2019 when he made him the Arnold Palmer Invitational after making a "hole in one" in the opening round.

The qualifiers will conclude at the end of the Omega European Masters. Then, the next day, the Englishman will dissolve the reserves and assign the six wild cards available to him. To date, together with the Northern Irishman Rory McIlroy and the Spanish Jon Rahm, respectively number 2 and 3 in the world, also the Norwegian Viktor Hovland, fifth in the world ranking, has taken the pass for the 2023 Ryder Cup.