Stars unite in praise of Paul

Paul McGinley deserved the praise he was receiving from his players as they sipped the champagne and held the trophy that meant he was a winning Ryder Cup captain.

A victory press conference, certainly for Europe, is an understandably chaotic affair, as giddy players interrupt their comrades, drink a little too much fizz and generally make a nuisance of themselves.

Except when it came to giving their verdicts on the man who created the masterplan that gave Europe their victory.

Not that McGinley saw it that way, his display of modesty another of the examples of consistency that have underpinned his successful captaincy.

“I didn’t execute the plan,” the captain said. “All these guys sitting at this table did.

“It’s easy to put it in place. It’s another thing to execute. I did the easy bit. They did the hard bit and I really mean that.

“I know what it’s like to be there as a player. I know how difficult it is to play in a Ryder Cup. I know when your heart is jumping out of your chest how incredibly excited and nervous you are. But we relish this challenge. We did it with a smile on our face, which is so important, and we did everybody proud I think.”

There were certainly smiles aplenty as they sat back and soaked in the sweet taste of victory as eagerly as their blazers had absorbed the champagne sprayed all over the stage during their trophy presentation, that natural moment when a dream is realised and the pressure of their favouritism was finally released.

“Yeah, we had pressure on us, but I reference Rory McIlroy, No 1 player in the world, he has pressure on him and he knows how to deal with these situations when you’re favourite. Obviously one of the reasons why Alex Ferguson was a guy that I asked a lot of questions of, was that reason.

“Most matches Man United would have played in, they would have been favourites, and dealing with favourites was something he was used to and comfortable with.

“He gave me a couple of pointers in that direction, and like I said, I had a view and I’ve said it in the media the last few months: Let’s embrace this situation.

“I had lunch with John Jacobs, the very first European Ryder Cup captain a couple of months ago, and there were tears welling in his eyes as we spoke about the fact that we were now going in as favourites and how strong the players were and the No 1 player in the world and four of the top 5 players in the world were European and how proud he was of all that.

“I always had the view, let’s embrace this. Let’s not be embarrassed about it or think it’s a disadvantage. These guys here have earned to be slight favourites, and let’s embrace it and go with it.”

To a man they did, and then praised their captain for allowing them to. Jose Maria Olazabal, a vice-captain this week, had placed McGinley at his side as he engineered the Miracle at Medinah, setting in train the Irishman’s rise to the captaincy two years later.

“I told you, I knew he was going to do a wonderful job,” Olazabal said to anyone who would listen.

“He’s a great man and he has the respect of the players. He has everything down to the smallest detail and that’s the way he was. He thought about everything and he was spot on.”

“It was amazing,” Garcia said. “He’s been so methodical, every single aspect that he needed to touch on, he did. Very, very inspiring. I’ve been fortunate to have a lot of great captains, but Paul did things a little bit different but he did it with great style.”

Asked to elaborate on his final point, the Spaniard added: “I think that he kind of probably brought a little bit more modern kind of captaincy to it. You know, really, really taking care of every single detail; knowing that what we had before was good and it worked and just trying to improve it a little bit without changing it. So I think he did a great job. He did an amazing job. He was — not even this week; he’s been on me for some months now. He told me how much I meant for him to be on his Ryder Cup team, and that’s probably one of the things that helped me play so well this year. ”

High praise indeed from the world No 3 and it didn’t stop there, with Ian Poulter adding: “He was absolutely brilliant, from start to finish; from the pictures on the walls, from how he spoke to how he treated everybody in that team room, everyone was the same.

“I think he’s done an absolutely sensational job.”