McGinley pledges to play it straight

Newly-appointed European Ryder Cup captain, Paul McGinley stressed he intends playing a ‘straight bat’ with US opponent Tom Watson in terms of the course set-up and placement of pins at Gleneagles.

Former US Ryder Cup captain, Davis Love III revealed he had a role in setting up the Sunday pins at 17 and 18 at Medinah but McGinley vowed he wouldn’t be doing likewise in Scotland next year.

The Dublin native admitted the issue will be one of the topics raised when he meets with Watson to finalise their Captains’ Agreement document.

“It’s too early yet to be talking about how Gleneagles will be set up so I will need to see the composition of the two teams first, and we’ll have to wait to see how that pans out,” said McGinley.

“But I’ll say this, and I’ll say it to Tom Watson, I will be playing a very straight bat on most things.

“So in terms of pin positions, and Davis let it be known afterwards he had a little bit of control over the position of the pins, I certainly won’t be having any control over that aspect of the set-up.

“So there are a lot of things I would like to see put into the Captains’ Agreement”

The Captains’ Agreement documents have to be in place before the official start of the qualifying process for both teams.