I’LL DO IT MY OWN WAY

Harrington making his mark as he relishes Ryder Cup captaincy

PADRAIG Harrington said more on his first day as Europe’s new Ryder Cup captain yesterday than many of his predecessors disclosed in six months.

If this is what he’s dishing up on what is usually a ceremonial day, filled customarily with rahrah clichés, the next 20 months promise to be compelling.

It was intriguing enough during the formal announcement, when he became the first Ryder Cup captain not to resort to blandishments such as ‘it’s an honour, etc’, but admitted to a sense of ‘trepidation’, and feeling ‘daunted’ at the scale of the task.

What followed, though, was positively spellbinding, as one nugget followed another. For starters, he will be advocating a tweak to the qualifying system, with three wild cards instead of four.

He followed that with the eye-opening revelation there will be no place for close friend Paul McGinley on his backroom team.

There was a robust defence of Rory McIlroy following his controversial remarks about the European Tour being a ‘stepping stone’ to the PGA Tour, before finishing with a dig at Nick Faldo’s captaincy in 2008.

Let’s start with McGinley. Such an inspirational skipper at Gleneagles in 2014, why wouldn’t you call on his wisdom as a vice-captain? ‘I will be relying on Paul, of course, but not in an official capacity,’ explained the 47-year-old.

‘I feel the job has moved on and it’s incumbent on the captain to bring players in as vicecaptains who could be future captains in their own right. It’s too important a role now, and no longer a jolly, if it ever was.’

You might have thought he’d get his feet under the table before tackling the qualification process but, again, he displays impeccable logic.

‘I’m having some stats done to see if they back up what I feel anecdotally, but I’m leaning to three picks instead of four,’ he said. ‘I find it hard to think how you would overlook the ninth player in the qualifying list, when you’ve got four picks, and my experience is that a player who finishes ninth feels more comfortable and has more belief in himself when he’s qualified rather than getting a pick.’

What about McIlroy — is it damaging to team morale when he’s so disparaging about his home tour?

‘That man loves the Ryder Cup, and he gets so much from it that he can’t get anywhere else. He’s not 30 yet and he gets to be the leader in the team room. He gets the opportunity to be loved on the course. He will be 100 per cent behind us,’ said Harrington.

Underlining the scale of the task he has taken on in seeking to defend the trophy in Wisconsin next year, only once in the last 15 years has the away team prevailed — and that needed a miracle at Medinah. To prepare, Harrington will call on the counsel of every captain from the last 20 years. Well, all but one.

‘Eight put their heart and soul into the job, so they will certainly be a help, while one did it halfheartedly, and that didn’t end so good,’ said Harrington. Just in case anyone had doubts as to the identity of the miscreant, Harrington added: ‘It shows that just because you’re a successful player, it doesn’t mean you’ll be a great captain.’ It promises to be a revelatory 20 months, doesn’t it?