Practice pairings a hint to Woosie’s Cup plan

IAN WOOSNAM isn’t one for curveballs, so it didn’t require Mystic Meg to figure out his pairings yesterday as Europe’s fine-tuning continued ahead of the Ryder Cup.

True to expectation, the Welsh man sent out Darren Clarke with Lee Westwood, Padraig Harrington with Colin Montgomerie, Sergio Garcia with Luke Donald and Paul Casey with his compatriot David Howell. And unless something totally unforeseen happens between now and 2pm tomorrow when he hands in his official formation, those four teams will bear the brunt of the action in the fourballs due to kick off at 8am.

Of course, that will come as a disappointment to the remaining four members who were paired together yesterday — Jose-Maria Olazabal with Robert Karlsson, and Paul McGinley with Henrik Stenson.