Paul McGinley Ryder Cup Exclusive: Battle of captains will be key - but what about Tiger Woods?

There is no doubt that America are favourites to win this year’s Ryder Cup.

They are playing a home, which is a huge advantage, they have some top players in the side and they will have a home crowd that are being encouraged to get behind their team like never before pushing them forward.

Yet Europe have a habit of rising to the challenge and the one thing I love about the European team is we have players in great form.

You look at Henrik Stenson showing some form in recent weeks, Justin Rose has just come off the back of winning an Olympic Gold medal and Rory McIlroy has found his best golf just in time, which is great news for Europe captain Darren Clarke. Rory’s form, in particular, must be concerning the Americans.

Meanwhile, the form of Masters champion Danny Willett was a worry a few weeks ago, but he has started to find his touch again and form is vital when you are going into a Ryder Cup and that story is replicated throughout the squad. Captain Darren Clarke has some wonderful selection dilemmas on his hands.

We have seen the American team loaded with high profile names down the years, but they have struggled to convert that reputation into Ryder Cup points on the board as many of them have not been in the best of form. This competition finds you out if you are not playing at your best or your confidence is low and that is what we have seen from the Americans in recent times.

A lot has been said about the fact that Europe has six rookies in the team this time, but I love the fact that they are rookies who are in good form and will be ready for the challenge of taking on the Americans. They all have the personality to carry this off in my mind.

The battle of captains will also be key in the coming days and both appear to be operating from very different positions of authority.

European captain Clarke will bring a lot of emotion and personality to the job. He seems to have done a huge amount of work on statistics, pairings and what might work out there. He wants to add stats into his mix when he makes his decisions and that will be interesting to watch.

In the other camp, it seems that Davis Love III is captaining very much by consensus.

He is not a lone ranger, the chief decision maker in the American team. Instead, he is gathering advice from a variety of sources and is working very closely with his vice captains as he makes his calls and that poses as many questions as answers.

The Americans set up a task force to examine why they have had such a bad run in recent Ryder Cups and it will be intriguing to see how that dynamic pans out. We have never seen a situation where so many voices are involved in making the decision and we don’t know how that is going to work.

There is no such thing as definitive planning in the Ryder Cup. There has to be flexibility in pairings, you need to pre-empt what might happen and then be ready to react.

Where do you put players who are not playing particularly well? What happens if you are behind in the points total? That all affects decisions over the course of the weekend, so there is no way you can have a plan that is set in stone.

In addition, it will also be fascinating to see how Tiger Woods plays out his role in the European team as a vice-captain. He is a big aura and he has an intimidation factor and we don’t know whether that can affect the European team or maybe even his own team.

The truth is there are so many questions around the American team heading into this year’s event and we wait to see whether the moves they have made after losing eight out of the last ten Ryder Cups.

America have changed the way they go about their task this time, but if Europe captain Darren Clarke is anything like I was heading into the Ryder Cup two years ago, I was pretty much unconcerned about anything they were up to ahead of our match at Gleneagles.

I was so consumed by what we were doing and having our house in order. We left no stone unturned, I wanted to make sure communication was clear to our players.

To emphasise how uninterested I was in the American plans, I didn’t even watch my opposite number Tom Watson as he announced his picks, as I took it for granted that we would be up against a strong American team.

That will be the case again this time, but all you can do as a captain is make sure your own house is in order.

Recent history suggests Europe will head to Hazeltine with a winning formula and once again, they will be a tough team to beat.

Sky Sports Ryder Cup’ will be the exclusive home of the competition from 26 September. Sky TV customers can upgrade to Sky Sports via the red button.