McGinley staying in swing

PAUL McGINLEY has decided to play in the German Masters in Cologne next week to keep himself competitive in the build-up to the Ryder Cup match in Detroit next month.

McGinley qualified for the European team on Sunday after playing for 10 successive weeks and was considering a full break from the tournament arena until the Ryder Cup clash with the Americans.

However, having discussed the matter with his manager Chubby Chandler, McGinley decided that taking this week off would be sufficient to recharge the batteries.

"I feel a little like Man United when they won the 1999 treble," said McGinley last night.

"They went from big game to big game to big game and they thrived on that. I've had a lot of adrenalin over the last ten weeks and I don't want to come off that and build right up to it again.

"I want to keep that big game mentality and I feel I'll have far more benefit playing four competitive rounds in the German Masters than I would having four days practice waiting for the Ryder Cup as opposed to going into it in competitive frame of mind."

McGinley, in Adare, Co Limerick, for a company day on behalf of Allianz, one of his sponsors, admitted there was a second reason - his captain, Bernhard Langer, has indicated that he wants him in Germany to start the bonding process that everybody associated with the European cause believes will be a crucial and positive ingredient when it comes to the big day.

"Bernhard is going to have a couple of meetings and obviously there's going to be a lot of gossip and a lot of chat between the players as to who's playing with whom, there will be a lot of informal discussions between players and the captain and I don't want to miss out on that," he explained.

"Sergio Garcia and Luke Donald are not playing in Germany, but otherwise we're all there and I'm looking forward to the excitement. There's a Virgin flight at one o'clock out of Heathrow on Monday week with all the players, caddies, wives, officials on board. My mum and dad will be on it along with my caddy Darren Reynolds and obviously my wife Alison."

Speculation is already rife concerning Langer's foursomes and fourball pairings, with the strong likelihood that the 1997 World Cup champions McGinley and Pádraig Harrington will play together. Paul has no difficulty with that prospect:

"I enjoy Pádraig's company off the course as well as on it. We bond as people as well as golfers. We've had a lot of success together and I'd like to play with him again and I've indicated as much to Bernhard and also told him how well I get on with Darren (Clarke) in fourballs. Pádraig rang me on Sunday and we're both going to tell Langer that we want to play together, but if he doesn't think so or wants to try us with somebody else, then we're certainly not going to be offended."

And with a wide grin, he joked: "it's not like a boyfriend, girlfriend thing, I don't mind sharing him around. It's an open relationship." McGinley had planned spending this week relaxing in Ireland only to discover that clinching his place in the team would render that impossible.

In fact, he was hardly back home in Sunningdale on Monday when the tailor arrived to measure him for all his Ryder Cup clothing.

"I was the only one who wouldn't do any fittings before the team was finalised," he said. "I didn't want to get involved with anything to do with it until I was actually in the team. I didn't want to know any colours, anything at all. He came up on Monday with a wardrobe of stuff, so that's out of the way. Alison flew over to Dublin this morning to do all her shopping at Brown Thomas. It's funny, if she lived in Dublin, she'd want to be over in London to do her shopping. Now she's coming back to Dublin to do it. Like me, she didn't want to get involved in buying this or buying that in case we weren't involved. The girls have a lot of functions to go to, so there's a whole lot of stuff to buy."