CHICAGO, Illinois, September 27 – Europe’s Ryder Cup team are free to use Twitter, team captain Jose Maria Olazabal said Wednesday, but they need to be careful over what they say.
Ian Poulter, Rory McIlroy and Lee Westwood are all avid users of the popular social network and have hundreds of thousands of followers between them.
McIlroy in particular is often in Twitter conversation with his girlfriend Caroline Wozniacki, the former World No.1 from Denmark.
But the Ryder Cup, where team-bonding is essential and great secrecy surrounds who will be playing with whom in the foursomes and fourballs, are a potential minefield for Twitter users.
Olazabal, however, has decided to take an even-handed approach.
“I’m not banning any member of the team to use it,” the Spaniard said.
“What I’ve said to them is that they have to be careful on what they say, how they say it and when they say it.
“I’m sure that any comments that are made on Twitter are not intended in a bad way, but if you take the sentence out of the context, it might look completely different.
“In that regard, the boys need to be a little bit cautious about it.”
There seemed to be no problem with using Twitter either on the US side with captain Davis Love commenting on his account – “Fans loving the Red Pants!” – a reference to the team outfits his players wore in practice on Wednesday.
