'My first opportunity to oversee a team event' - Luke Donald dubs Hero Cup as a stepping stone to Ryder Cup 

Team Europe captain Luke Donald believes that the Hero Cup will be the perfect “stepping stone” in the quest of Ryder Cup in September.

The Hero Cup features two teams, Team Continental Europe, and Team Great Britain and Ireland having 10 players each. Tommy Fleetwood leads the GB&I and Francesco Molinari will be captaining Europe.

As Donald has selected all the players from both teams, he will be closely looking at their performances for the Ryder Cup preparation. Donald said he was looking forward to seeing them play in the team format.

“This was extremely important to get an event like this back on the schedule to give us an opportunity to get these guys in a team and see how they perform in match play. And this is a great first stepping stone, building blocks, for hopefully getting a very successful Ryder Cup in Rome,", Donald stated.

The competition is the successor to the now-discontinued Seve Trophy, which was held eight times between 2000 and 2013. It gave a lot of captaincy experience to the likes of Jose Maria Olazabal, Colin Montgomerie, Nick Faldo, Thomas Bjorn and Paul McGinley, who went on to lead Team Europe in the Ryder Cup.

Donald has been the European captain ever since Henrik Stenson defected due to his association with LIV Golf.

The 45-year-old said it was his first opportunity to oversee a team event and he expects a few mistakes and some good things too as a warmup for the September event.

“It’s a great opportunity for me to be around some guys that have a great potential to be in Rome, to get to know them better, and to see how they perform on the golf course," added Donald.

Donald said that given they don't usually play matchplay or foursomes very often, Hero Cup will be a good tournament to test some possible new partnerships for the Rome event.

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Hero Cup Friday's schedule

Molinari and Fleetwood posing with the Hero Cup trophy

The first match of the Hero Cup will be between the pair of GB&I skipper Fleetwood and Shane Lowry against Europe's Alex Noren and Thomas Pieters in Friday’s opening fourballs.

The next match will take place between the English duo of Jordan Smith and Tyrrell Hatton against France's Antoine Rozner and Belgium’s Thomas Detry

The English pair of Callum Shinkwin and Matt Wallace will face France’s Victor Perez and Italy’s Guido Migliozzi in the third match.

European captain Molinari will take the field alongside Denmark’s Nicolai Hojgaard facing the duo of Scotland’s Ewen Ferguson and England’s Richard Mansell in the fourth contest of the day.

The final match of the first day will be between Ireland’s Seamus Power and Scotland’s Robert MacIntyre against Austria’s Sepp Straka and Poland’s Adrian Meronk.

Fleetwood said that GB& I had a great team, but he wasn't taking the opposition lightly either.

“Europe’s a great team as well but I feel very confident in my guys, like we all do,” stated Fleetwood.

Europe's captain Molinari agreed with Fleetwood stating that both the teams were talented and was hoping to see some exciting golf this week.

Interestingly, Molinari and Fleetwood partnered in the 2018 Ryder Cup in Paris, winning all four of their matches and were named "Moliwood".