McGinley passes test of character

Afternoon foursomes: John O'Sullivan on the impressive but ultimately unprofitable debut by Paul McGinley as he partnered fellow Irishman Padraig Harrington in their afternoon defeat

Experience comes in many guises and not simply from being thrust into the fray. Paul McGinley, preparing to make his Ryder Cup debut later in the day, stood by the first tee at The Belfry, watching the foursomes herald the beginning of the biennial contest between Europe and America.

He was there to lend support to his team-mates but also harboured a personal mission. The Dubliner wanted to experience the atmosphere, feel the adrenaline rush, the clamour that would assail his senses when he strode to the tee at 2.35 p.m. If offered him an inkling of what he could expect.

"I deliberately went down to the tee in the morning, obviously to support my team-mates but I also wanted to experience the occasion. I'm glad I was there. The roar when Thomas (Bjorn) and Darren (Clarke) walked onto the tee was unbelievable. It is the loudest roar I have ever heard on a golf course.

"I've never heard anything like that except on Hill 16. I had heard so much about what it was like and we had talked about it all week. It is very intimidating. I think if I stopped to think how nervous I was, I wouldn't have been able to take the club back."

Fortified by his experiences in the morning, McGinley was still taken aback by the reception he received when walking that sheltered corridor between the ropes from the putting green to the first tee.

"I think the whole of Ireland must have been there. It was terrific. I was hoping I would enjoy it and I did."

It wasn't as if he was nursed through the opening salvos of his afternoon foursomes against the American combination of Jim Furyk and Ryder Cup rookie Stewart Cink. Padraig Harrington might have looked to cosset McGinley by taking the opening drive in the alternate shot format but instead demurred to his fellow Dubliner.

As a character examination they don't come much tougher, nor can they be dispatched with much greater aplomb than the five-wood McGinley ripped down the left-hand edge of the fairway, 260 yards into the wind. His acclamation was a crescendo of noise.

"It wasn't frightening but it was a huge adrenaline rush. That was the thing about playing; it's about being able to control the adrenaline rush.

"I'll give you an example. Down 11, I hit a three-wood 270 yards into the wind. I've never done anything like that before."

In fairness to Harrington he had about 40 minutes between his titanic fourball tussle and the heartbreak of watching his putt to halve the match on the home green horseshoe out, to prepare for another four hours-plus on the golf course.

The Irish supporters in the 35,000 crowd that thronged The Belfry yesterday, as one Tricolour proclaimed, had come to exhort to victory, "our Celtic Tigers". John Treacy, Liam Mulvihill, Michael Smurfit and former Tánaiste Dick Spring mingled with hundreds of Irish accents, but there was to be no Irish fairytale.

Furyk and Cink, provided an irresistible partnership, producing easily the best figures of the day: five under for the 16 holes played, a wonderful score in the foursomes format. They missed two fairways and on the couple of occasions that they didn't find the putting surface in regulation, they chipped stone dead.

McGinley conceded that their opponents were simply too good.

"We played well but they played some great golf. They would have won any match out there."

If McGinley was looking for an early test he found it at the second hole. Harrington put him in the trees off the tee and then left his partner with a five-foot clutch putt for a half. McGinley passed both.

The first four holes were halved, the third and fourth in birdie, before the Irish pair display a chink on the fifth. McGinley missed the green with his approach and Harrington's sand wedge from the trap came up 10 feet short, pre-empting a bogey and the loss of the hole.

One down at the turn McGinley was guilty of a premature punch of delight, his wedge to the green spinning back cruelly to the front fringe. When his partner failed to hole from 12 feet, Cink pounced to roll in an eight footer for birdie and a two-hole lead. Coming off the green an American voice in the crowd urged: "Good work Stewart, good work Jim. Let's keep it in the red boys."

His wish was their command. At the 11th, it was Cink again who wielded the putter to great effect, this time from 18 feet.

Three down became four at the next when Harrington visited the water and while McGinley's birdie putt at the 13th offered a glimmer of hope, the Americans responded in kind with a two at the 14th. The Irish pair would rally one final time, Harrington guaranteeing a birdie four on 15. The respite would last just one further hole, a wayward tee shot, pre-empting a concession at greenside.

One could feel nothing but sympathy for the Irish pair but Harrington in particular. Together with Niclas Fasth they were eight under in the morning fourballs yet lost by one hole to Phil Mickelson and David Toms, nine under the card for the 18. In the afternoon he had the misfortune to run into another form American pair.

McGinley will prize his Ryder Cup debut, rightly so, acknowledging the disappointment of losing but aware of the fact that there can be considerable merit in defeat.