News: Sandy Lyle has put his name forward to captain Europe's Ryder Cup team at Celtic Manor near Newport in 2010.

Lyle assisted Ian Woosnam when Europe retained the trophy at The K Club last month, but the Scot knows time is running out for his own captaincy ambitions.

"I don't have that 10 or 15 years of waiting," he said. "I've only got a window of the next six years at most. What looks quite good timing would be 2010 at the Celtic Manor in Wales. That is the one I would be lobbying for."

Nick Faldo has already been named as the 2008 captain for the match in Valhalla, Kentucky, but Lyle, a key player in Europe's Ryder Cup resurgence during the 1980s, still hopes his time will come. He has made five Ryder Cup appearances, although he was last involved as a player back in 1987 alongside Woosnam, Faldo, Bernhard Langer, Seve Ballesteros and Sam Torrance, who have all since been captains.

By 2010, Lyle, now 48, could face competition from the next generation of players, potentially headed by Colin Montgomerie. But he added: "Most of those from my era have already been Ryder Cup captains. There's not many of us left, so I think I've got a good chance. You don't necessarily have to be a major winner - if the quality of your character works in a team and you can front the Ryder Cup as a captain, speak well and work well with the team, that's half the battle."

A winner of the British Open in 1985 and the US Masters in 1988, Lyle comes from an era when Europeans were regularly winning majors. He does not accept that the team which beat America 18½-9½ last month was necessarily Europe's strongest ever. "It was a good team to beat America by the amount we did," he said. "People say the Americans didn't play well but we didn't allow them to.

"But if you look back at 1987 you had about 14 or 15 major titles in that one team if you added them up with myself, Ballesteros, Langer, (Jose Maria) Olazabal and Faldo. Yes, it was a great team in 2006, but it is hard to forget the 1987 team."

• Guardian Service