McGinley Leaves Europe's Finest Trailing

If there was a Ryder Cup for articulate golfers then Paul McGinley would be the first name on the captain's team sheet. But until that unlikely event finds a place on the calendar the Irishman will have to earn his place on the game's biggest stage in the traditional manner - by winning tournaments.

Alas, the man who famously made his name by holing a putt at The Belfry to beat the Americans in 2002 has won little in recent times, although he gave himself every chance of righting the wrong yesterday when he shot a seven-under-par 65 around Wentworth's West course to take the first-round lead at the PGA Championship. Seven birdies and 11 pars were enough to give McGinley a one-shot advantage over the strongest field so far this year on the European Tour. It was also enough to encourage the Irishman to vent about the direction the professional game has taken in recent years.

While those who govern the sport have become obsessed with distance, many of those who play it for a living, McGinley among them, believe that golf should be more than just a test of how far a player can hit the ball. "Everybody seems to think that 7,500-yard courses are the future of golf. They talk about Tiger-proofing courses by making them 7,500 yards - they are playing into his hands by doing that," he said, insisting that firm and fast conditions, not length, provided the true test of a golfer's skills. "I would love to see the game go that way."

This would explain why he was smitten after finishing his day's work on a course playing harder and faster than it has done for years. "That was very tricky, a real, proper, test of golf," he said after his 65 - one of only two bogey-free rounds on the day. "You are not tested on course management anymore because a lot of the courses we play on these days are soft and one-dimensional. Whereas, this course is about old-style golf. This is links golf. This is what the game was initially designed around and I revel in it because I think you've not only got to play shots and have ball control, you have also got to have course management."

The Irishman, who has played on the last three European teams, all of them victorious, is 36th in the current rankings - not good, obviously, but not irrecoverable, especially if he can go on to pick up the £597,000 winner's check on Sunday. Yet he has been around the game long enough, and been on the receiving end of its capricious nature too many times, to look that far ahead.

Even so, he would have been less than human if he didn't take heart from a scoreboard recording the travails of many of those who might have been fancied to win the European Tour's flagship event, chief among them being Justin Rose, who returned a birdie-less 76, and Lee Westwood, who had two double-bogeys in his last four holes before signing for a five-over 77.

Still, a European Ryder Cup team without either of the two Englishmen is unimaginable. Equally, it is becoming increasing difficult to picture a team without the imposing figure of Robert Karlsson, a stalwart member of Ian Woosnam's squad at the K-Club and who continues to go about his business with a quiet but ruthless efficiency. The lanky Swede has not finished outside the top 10 in his last three tournaments and few would bet against him extending that record after a six-under 66, recorded late in the day when conditions were at their trickiest, left him just one shot behind the leader.