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JOHNNIE WALKER CHAMPIONSHIP AT GLENEAGLESAugust 27, 2010Paul McGinleyGLENEAGLES, SCOTLAND PAUL McGINLEY: It's been a pretty awful year up to now, and obviously I struggled with my injury and getting back to play but as I said I've always played better as the season went on and hopefully that's going to be the case. Q. Is the injury 100 per cent now? PAUL McGINLEY: It's not 100 per cent, but it's 85 per cent and it's moving up all the time. Q. This new driver seems to be giving you a bit of pleasure. PAUL McGINLEY: Yeah, I've driven the ball straight. I think around here I'm never going to overpower the golf course, so it's important for me to hit the fairways and I've only missed two, maybe three fairways in the two days and that's been the basis of why I've played so well. Q. Only two off the lead at the minute. PAUL McGINLEY: I've got a bit of confidence. I've played well in the Irish Open for the first time all year. Unfortunately I had three weeks off afterwards, but I've been practising and in the gym every second day over the last three weeks. Spent an extra ten days in Ireland and extra ten days in Portugal. I'm well prepared and looking forward to the weekend and being in contention on the weekend. As I said, it's been a very barren year and it's nice to be playing well again and looking forward for the weekend. Q. Do you walk around here thinking, 'I might be captain in four years' time?' (Laughter). PAUL McGINLEY: No. I can't think that way. It's not for me to go out and say, I'd like to be captain, here, there, everywhere. Of course I'd love to be captain. Everybody wants to be captain but that's something for the future. Let's deal with this vice captaincy first. I don't really know what to expect with this vice captaincy. I don't think it's going to be as easy as a lot of people think it is. Obviously the picks are going to be extremely difficult. My role during the week, as well, I'm very, very conscious of not overstepping my mark, where I was captain of the Vivendi last year, very conscious of not overstepping my mark. I'm very conscious of that; and Monty is the captain and I'm very much in the background. So as a result, I can't say much to you guys. I don't want to attract any attention. Q. Have you been involved -- PAUL McGINLEY: Yeah, quite a bit. I've talked to Monty quite a bit. He said he wants to have a big communication with his backroom team and he's been true to his word so far. Having said that, I don't know how much say we're going to have in the picks. Certainly he's going to ask us for our opinions and we'd be a sounding board for him, but, you know, at the end of the day, he's the one who will make the picks and the tough decisions. Q. When will you have a chat about the picks? PAUL McGINLEY: I think tomorrow night we are going to go to his house for dinner tomorrow night and have a good chat about that over a barbeque or something. That was the plan, anyway. Yeah, I think tomorrow night we'll have a good idea as to how things are going to pan out, and then I'm sure we'll meet again come the final putt on Sunday. Q. With the way the season is running and the three boys over in the States, do you think it would be wiser for The European Tour and the captain to defer the naming of the wild cards until a few days after the two tournaments have ended? PAUL McGINLEY: No. I think it's important that we finish the European qualification process on European soil, European ground and not wait to see what happens in American. Q. But America days until September 7? PAUL McGINLEY: We do, but we have always done it this it way and our record in the last 20 years has been so strong; why change it? There's no reason. I mean, we want to have the focus of attention on this tournament, and on this week, and not on Americans, not on what the Americans are doing. Q. So would that be embarrassing for Colin to pick -- to not pick somebody from the American tournament who goes on to win that tomorrow night? PAUL McGINLEY: Of course it would be embarrassing but you have to draw the line sometime. If you do it next week and somebody else wins the week after, it's always going to be a problem. I think it's important that we have this qualification on European terms, on European soil. We need to qualify on European soil. The final qualifying has to be on European soil as far as I'm concerned. We shouldn't be watching what happens in America. As a tour we should be dictating the end of our qualification process, finishes on European soil. Q. Then do you pick somebody on European soil or does that not matter? PAUL McGINLEY: That's the big argument, isn't it. I've read your articles this week and it's a very strong argument both ways, no doubt. It's a dilemma, it's a real dilemma. Q. Which way do you lean? PAUL McGINLEY: I can't say. It wouldn't be fair for me to say. As I say, I don't want to say anything that's going to drag the attention away from Monty. I'm the vice captain at the end of the day, and I don't want to drag the attention to the background. I've got private views but I think they should remain private because I am the advice captain. Q. So opinions, not necessarily a bad thing, you'll have a discussion, is there a variety of opinions amongst the vice captain and captains? PAUL McGINLEY: Well, I haven't spoke to Darren, so Darren hasn't been here. I'm very interested to hear what Darren's views are. I have a good idea what Monty's and Thomas's are, and to be honest, none of us have given a strong opinion yet. We have just thrown all the balls up in the air, pluses and minuses of each player, that's the only meetings and discussions we've had so far. Nothing definitive. Q. Have you asked the players? PAUL McGINLEY: I've asked for my own information, not for anything else. And I asked the reasons why, in case I've missed something. Q. What do the players say, what kind of response? PAUL McGINLEY: It's mixed. There's no doubt, like everybody else, it's a dilemma. The ideal situation is if the boys had of qualified, but that's what we wanted. That's why Monty -- that's what he would have wanted. But at the end of the day he looked for three picks because he thought there might be a scenario like this that might happen. Q. Is there a concern over the form of both Pádraig and Justin at the moment? PAUL McGINLEY: I mean, the old saying, I mean, form is temporary, class is permanent; I think that applies to both of them. There's pluses and minuses for every player, believe you me, we have looked at every single angle there can be. We have thrown all the balls up in the air. We have discussed it quite in depth about each player, but Darren has not been a party to those and I'll be interested to hear what he has to say when he comes in on Saturday. Q. Was the absence last week a real shame like Pádraig -- PAUL McGINLEY: You're pushing me into a corner there. (Laughter). Everything was a shame. Pádraig was a thousand Euros out of the team before last week. Make up your own mind. It's disappointing. Pádraig is a world-class player, and I've been fortunate to play great Ryder Cup records with him and he's a really good friend of mine. But he's in for a pick. He has not qualified for a team, he has not by his own admission from what I've read, somebody was quoting him as saying he doesn't feel he has his schedule quite right and as a result he's looking for a pick. But as I say, he's a number of a lot of really strong picks and unfortunately we didn't expect so many players being outside the top nine qualifiers. Q. Were you with Lee last week? PAUL McGINLEY: I was with Lee, and he's okay. He's not 100 per cent but he's okay. He's working hard on his fitness, he's brought a special machine, he has his fitness trainer with him and he's working very hard and one thing I can say about Lee is he's so up for this Ryder Cup. So up mentally for this Ryder Cup. He's chomping at the bit. We had some really good barbeques and chats with him and spent some good time with him. Q. How much is Lee going to mean to that team? PAUL McGINLEY: Huge. He's our No. 1 player at this moment in time, judging by the World Rankings. He is really up for this Ryder Cup and he's going to give himself every opportunity to play that Ryder Cup. Hopefully he's going to come back soon and have some tournaments under his belt before The Ryder Cup. Q. Do you think he's concerned that he won't be 100 per cent? PAUL McGINLEY: I don't think he's concerned, no. He's quite confident he's going to make it. Q. Is the concern that he won't play competitively before The Ryder Cup, is that a concern? PAUL McGINLEY: It's not really a concern. He wants to get back as quick as possible but at the same time he realises the only way he's going to fix this injury is rest. He's brought a special machine to ice it and get the fluid out of it and all that. The medical advice he has is very good; that he's going to be fine. Q. Do you think he'll play in the Vivendi? PAUL McGINLEY: He's hoping to play as soon as possible, whether that's Vivendi or the week before, even Austria. All I can say is he's so up for playing this Ryder Cup, he can't wait to get back and he's going to give himself every opportunity to be fit and ready to play all five matches. Lee's record, nobody can stand next to Lee, maybe Monty and maybe Seve and maybe Olazábal -- (laughter). I think Lee is just a great Ryder Cup player, and his foursomes record is outstanding. Nobody can stand next to him in a foursomes record, put it that way. So it will be interesting to see how quickly he comes back, but he's right up for coming back as soon as possible. End of FastScripts |
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