Olly: McGinley ideal captaincy choice

Medinah miracle worker Jose Maria Olazabal has heaped praise on his successor as Ryder Cup captain, Paul McGinley.

“Paul has been wonderful as a vice-captain in the last two Ryder Cup’s and he certainly deserves now to be a captain,” said Olazabal. “He knows very well the job in hand and I’m sure he will do a superb job. I have been impressed not only by the way he captained the GB & I Seve Trophy teams but impressed by how he handled his role at Medinah. So the European Ryder Cup captaincy is still in good hands with Paul.

And when asked what advice Olazabal would extend to McGinley, the Spaniard responded: “I don’t need to give him any advice as he’s been there and he’s done it all. But it is not going to be easy for him when it comes to playing golf as your mind is always somewhere else and all the things that go with the Ryder Cup. So it’s important for him to try and focus on just competing.”

McGinley, one of five Irish teeing-up at the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters in Doha, was also in the field when the event was first played in 1998.

“When we first came here we stayed for the first few years in the Sheraton Hotel at the opposite end of the Corniche and it was later the headquarters for the US in the Gulf War,” recalled McGinley.

“It was the only hotel in the region but the skyline is now so different whereas the golf course, apart from a few new tee boxes, hasn’t changed that much.”

And McGinley indicated the start of qualifying for 2014 Ryder Cup will be brought forward a week to the August 29, commencing with the Wales Open at Celtic Manor.