Paul McGinley has been basking in the glory of the Ryder Cup success of Team Europe throughout the last week and his moves have been hailed as a master class in captaincy by many. But perhaps his greatest master class was the one that he didn’t make.
McGinley decided against pairing Northern Irishmen Graeme McDowell and Rory McIlroy together and according to McDowell, it was the best decision.
Speaking to a newspaper back home, G-Mac stated that the fact remains that he and McIlroy didn’t have the most impressive of records and at best, they could have played foursomes together but the captain knew what he was doing and he made the right call.
There was a lot of talk about how the two would take to being paired up for the event, especially after the litigation filed by the world number one against a management company that he had set up with his compatriot Graeme McDowell and that was one of the reasons why McGinley had said before the tournament that he had been thinking about splitting up the pairing.
Although both golfers maintained that they had patched things up between them, McGinley didn’t take any chances and paired McIlroy with Sergio Garcia thrice and once with Englishman Ian Poulter that resulted in 1-1-2 record while McDowell was paired with Victor Dubuisson for two victories in the foursomes.
Graeme McDowell further stated that he has been very fortunate over the years to have played with some of the best partners on golf – Ian Pouler, Miguel Angel Jimenez and Padraig Harrington back in 2008 and with McIlroy twice in 2010 and 2012 and any golfer would be proud of having such great partners in crimes, made all the more sweet with victory in all those Ryder Cup events as well.