Paul McGinley ramps up pressure on USA

• Paul McGinley piles pressure on Team USA ahead of Ryder Cup
• “There’s going to be huge media attention,” said the Irishman
• Thinks Darren Clarke will name no more than three rookies

Paul McGinley has ramped up the pressure on Team USA ahead of the 2016 Ryder Cup by saying that ‘everyone is expecting them to win’ at Hazeltine.

The 49-year-old, who masterminded Team Europe’s win at Gleneagles in 2014, thinks the coming together of the US Ryder Cup task force in the wake of their sixth defeat in seven matches has placed immense scrutiny on the team and is eager to see how they, and Europe, will cope.

“I think there’s a lot of pressure on Davis Love” – Paul McGinley

“In the American camp, post task force, I think there’s a lot of pressure on them,” Paul McGinley told bunkered.co.uk. “I think there’s a lot of pressure on Davis Love. Everyone’s expecting them to win, they’re expecting to win themselves and they’re playing at home.

“There’s going to be huge media attention post task force. A lot of decisions were made in the task force that the players wanted to happen so the Americans have put themselves in a situation where there’s going to be a huge amount of pressure on them and it’ll be very interesting to see how they deal with that – and how Europe deal with it also.”

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Sir Nick Faldo is one who says USA are strong favourites next September, although McGinley disagreed with the six-time major winner’s belief that there could be as many as six rookies in the European team and is of the opinion that Darren Clarke will opt for experience with his captain’s picks.

“There’s an interesting dynamic going on,” he said. “First of all, I think the European team is going to be very strong. You’re going to have the usual suspects there who are always the backbone of the European team and with the captain’s three picks, they’ll highly likely be experienced players.

“We’ll probably have two or three rookies – I’ll be very surprised if there are more than three – just like we had at Gleneagles. So I think it’s going to be a strong European team for sure.”

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But what of Tiger Woods’ announcement as a Ryder Cup vice-captain? Well, McGinley believes that Davis Love’s decisions should be based on trust as he hailed the importance of his vice-captains at Gleneagles.

“At the end of the day, the captain has to make his vice-captaincy decisions based on what he wants to do as a captain because everybody does things differently,” he said. “I made my decisions based on people I wanted around and who I could trust implicitly.

“I needed people who were going to give me the feedback that I wanted – that were going to bring a certain atmosphere into the room and help to create something that I wanted as a captain. So, they were all part of a big structure and plan that I felt was right and for me, they were all hugely important and I’m very grateful for the role that they did play.

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“They made some big decisions themselves, Sam in particular. I remember following Jamie and Lee when they got beat on the Saturday morning and my decision of ‘Do I put them out again in the afternoon?’ was heavily based on the feedback I got from Sam.

“They went out in the afternoon and won 5&4 and that for me was the value of someone I could trust and someone who could read the dynamics, the body language and the energy levels of the players. So that’s the value of having strong vice-captains and I’m sure Davis is making his decisions on what he feels is important for his captaincy.

Paul McGinley :: Are US favourites?

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