Celtic Manor test for Ryder captains

TWO golfers ranked 187th and 281st in the world would not normally find themselves the centre of attention going into a tournament.

But Colin Montgomerie and Corey Pavin are the players concerned and at the Wales Open starting tomorrow their minds will not just be on trying to achieve their first top-10 finishes since last June.

They are now, of course, the European and United States Ryder Cup captains and Celtic Manor is where the first match on Welsh soil will take place in October next year.

Pavin is on his first trip to the venue and says he will be encouraging likely team members to enter the event next year to get a feel for the lay-out.

How successful he will be in that remains to be seen, certainly if it comes two weeks before the US Open again, but Montgomerie is probably going to have to do the same.

Europe’s top stars do not yet know the course anything like as well as they did Valderrama, The Belfry and The K Club, where they were successful in 1997, 2002 and 2006 respectively.

Following the withdrawals of Oliver Wilson, Soren Hansen (both bad backs) and Robert Karlsson (inner ear infection), the only member of last year’s team in this week’s line-up is Miguel Angel Jimenez.

And he played 11 holes in eight over par last June – the first time the tournament had been staged on the cup course – before retiring with a knee problem.

With Pádraig Harrington and Wilson missing the cut that week and Hansen and Graeme McDowell finishing well down the field, Karlsson was the only member of Nick Faldo’s side to depart with great memories. He shot a closing 64 to be runner-up to Australian Scott Strange.

Montgomerie asked not to be paired with Pavin in the opening two rounds, presumably because he wants to keep Ryder Cup chat separate from his attempt to re-ignite a career that has seen him drop 66 places in the world rankings this year.

His last competitive hole was a triple-bogey seven at the European Open and he complained of having “no confidence at all”.

In contrast, on Sunday Pavin had his lowest round of the year, a 65 that lifted him to 18th place at the Colonial tournament.

Meanwhile, Montgomerie’s attention to detail as Ryder Cup captain has gone as far as asking for a change to the doors into the team rooms at Celtic Manor. In his first “Captain’s Blog” on the Ryder Cup website Montgomerie wrote: “There is a quaint old Scottish saying which goes along the lines of ‘every mickle maks a muckle’. What it means is that it is important to consider all the little elements which go together to make up the big goal you are trying to achieve.

“That phrase was brought home to me once again by an incident during my visit to Celtic Manor. The team rooms (there) can be entered and exited by two big wooden doors.

“Although they were beautiful, as I was standing there looking at them something didn’t feel right and it suddenly dawned on me – you couldn’t see who was on the other side.

“Imagine you are coming back off the golf course and are just about to put your hand on the handle to pull the door open when one of your team-mates comes barging out of the room from the other side.

“Bang! The door smashes into your hand and that is your Ryder Cup finished. Twelve months of sweat and toil taken away in an instant.

“I immediately alerted the officials to the issue and that will be changed immediately either by making each door only open one way or by putting glass panels in both the doors so you can see who is on the other side.”