US Ryder Cup captain Davis Love III is pulling out all the stops in pursuit of bringing the trophy back Sateside and has enlisted the help of decorated Olympian Michael Phelps to help him do just that.
Motivational speakers are in vogue of course, Europe's Ryder Cup winning captain and Ireland's own Paul McGinley arranged to have Sir Alex Ferguson speak to his team before they stormed to victory in Gleneagles two years ago.
"Alex Ferguson was not just picked out of the blue because I met him by chance or anything like that," McGinley said in 2014.
"He was picked for a reason. He was a manager of a very, very successful football team that played at home very well, had a great record at home, were very good at playing with the tag of favourites and the expectation on them."
This trend seems to be continuing and Clarke has opted to bring in former Munster and Lions captain Paul O'Connell to speak to the players, as well as bringing in a team of six data specialists to travel to the United States.
Love has decided to go down a similar route.
"We had a very exciting talk from Michael Phelps, who is out there getting ready to tee off," Love said. "I'm hoping to get out there to watch him hit on the first hole. Michael talked to us a lot about the Olympic experience and Team USA and how much fun it was for him to have the four American golfers down there because he's such a big golf fan."
The aim is to try and create an team atmosphere among some of the world's biggest golfers and he continued: "We got off to a great start with Michael and our gifts, and then had a great dinner. I told the guys a few things at dinner and said, you guys can do whatever you want when we get back, and the next thing you know, we had the whole team in our dining room sitting around listening to Phil and Tiger and Brandt and Jim Furyk tell stories."
Action gets underway at Hazeltine National Golf Club this Friday.
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