Clubs and Ryder Cup items stolen from Paul McGinley’s car

Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley’s car was broken into and valuable memorabilia stolen less than two hours after he arrived in the US.

It emerged he was with the priest who celebrated his marriage at the time.

McGinley had been met on arrival from Dublin by Fr Brendan McBride of the Irish Pastoral Centre in San Francisco.

The Gleneagles captain had brought with him Ryder Cup memorabilia to be auctioned at the centre on Monday night before Fr McBride joined him in travelling further south to Carmel and this week’s AT & T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am at Pebble Beach in California.

Fr McBride, who has been residing in the US for the past 20 years, had not only celebrated the marriage of McGinley and his wife but christened their three children. In fact, it was Fr McBride’s suggestion that the pair stop off at the Cliff House, at Cliff Top on the Pacific Ocean shoreline, and just a short drive south of the famed Golden Gate Bridge.

“It was one o’clock in the afternoon and I just wanted some fresh air, having been on an airplane for so long,” said McGinley.

“Fr McBride, a good friend of mine, met me at the airport, and he had married me and Ali and also christened all our kids, and is a very good friend of the family and also a good golfer.

“And he says come on, we’ll walk the beach and get some fresh air. He said there’s a lovely restaurant called the Cliff House, we’ll go have lunch there.

“So we parked the car just outside the Cliff House and it’s a busy street. Lovely part of town. So we walked the beach, and came back and the back window was smashed in and most of my stuff taken.

“Now the problem was I had an SUV and my clubs wouldn’t fit in the trunk, so they were sitting in the back seat. The rest of the stuff was all hidden but once they saw the golf clubs... But despite what happened the charity function still went ahead at the pastoral centre and hopefully we would have still raised still a lot of money.”

Also stolen from McGinley’s vehicle were Gleneagles gala dinner menus signed by both teams along with his passport, travel documents, and an iPad.

“I was only an hour and a half in the country but look, as I say, it can happen anywhere in the world. It’s one of those things,” he said.