McGinley pragmatic about dip in form of European stars

Ryder Cup captain is adopting a “Don’t panic” approach to the disappointing form shown by Rory McIlroy and others in 2013.

McIlroy has failed to hit the heights after a sensational run in 2012, but he is not the only high-profile European to struggle. None of Lee Westwood, Luke Donald, Sergio Garcia, Martin Kaymer and Ian Poulter have won a tournament either.

All of these were instrumental in the Miracle at Medinah, and McGinley would want them in his Ryder Cup team at Gleneagles in 12 months’ time. But the European captain has been playing golf for long enough to understand the struggles every player faces.

“There’s never been a player in the history of the game who has not had peaks and troughs,” says McGinley. “Tom Watson went through a dip for nine years. Jack Nicklaus went through a large period between winning one Major and the next.

“Since he turned pro, Rory has virtually had an upward spiral in his career. It was only a matter of time before he started having a downward cycle.

“Rory is such a good player and still has so much drive. Something will click into place, he’ll get a good feeling and all of a sudden, he’ll work his way back up again.

“I always think back to a comment Tom Weiskopf made when he was the best player in the world.

“He said: ‘When I’m playing well, I can never understand how I ever played badly. And when I’m playing badly, I can never understand how I ever played well.’

“Any golfer can relate to that. And Rory is no different.

“But just as you talk about Rory and Luke Donald having a downturn, we have Justin Rose winning the US Open and Henrik Stenson winning the FedEx Cup. The main thing is we still have a huge number of players in the top bracket of the game.”

It’s now a year to go before the Ryder Cup arrives at Gleneagles and McGinley will be carefully watching who makes his team. He accepts that home advantage may give Europe a slender edge, but he knows the size of the challenge.

“Lady Luck has shone on us in the last two matches,” he admits. “We’ve won by one point each time. And we’ve only won two series of matches in those.

“I’ll want to impress on the team how slim the margins are, as there’ll hardly be any difference between the sides next year.”