Paul McGinley to lead Irish golf team at 2016 Olympic Games

Typical of Paul McGinley really to leave no stone unturned. When Redmond O'Donoghue – the chairman of the Confederation of Golf in Ireland – first contacted McGinley to enquire if he would take on the role as golf team leader for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, the Dubliner embarked on his own consultation process.

McGinley may still have been entitled to bask in the afterglow of his flawless Ryder Cup captaincy, but he knew the importance of touching base with those who matter: the players.

He phoned Rory McIlroy, Graeme McDowell and Shane Lowry – all players likely to be in the frame for a place on the plane to Rio – and he had a 45 minutes long conversation with Stephanie Meadow. Only then did he take on the role.

As McGinley, sporting a green Team Ireland Golf sweater, put it: “They were all animated I should do it . . . I see my role as quite a big one, because we are going into the unknown. With the Ryder Cup captaincy, I knew what I was doing.

Question mark

“ I’d been involved in so many before moving into the captaincy that I knew the role and what the Ryder Cup was about and what went on behind the scenes. With this, it is a big question mark.

“All of us in golf are in that question mark at the moment, all the players to the management. So I see my role as right in the middle there, of making it as seamless as possible for all the players to go and play.”

Golf, which is returning to the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro for the first time since 1904, will be played as two tournaments – men’s and women’s strokeplay events over 72 holes – with the fields limited to 60 players.

As of now, McIlroy, the world number one, and McDowell would comprise a two-man Irish team and Meadow would be the sole representative in the women’s event.

McGinley, who has received a large number of plaudits for his captaincy of Europe’s winning team at the Ryder Cup, intends to make a number of visits to the course and to perhaps play in a test tournament that is scheduled for the end of 2015.

Of taking on the new role of team leader, McGinley said: “I was more than surprised, more than anybody, after the Ryder Cup that I didn’t have a dip, in thinking ‘Oh my God, what am I going to do now? This big hole in my life has gone’.

“Even to this day I haven’t had a big hole taken out of my life. I always knew it (the captaincy) was going to end in Gleneagles one way or the other. I was prepared for that. When it did happen, it wasn’t a big issue for me.

“It is a great opportunity (to be a team leader at the Olympics), something that is going to sit alongside other things I do in my life . . . . . I am hoping to play from February with a view to playing in 15 (tournaments next year). I’ve a number of business interest that are bobbing along nicely. I’ve got a bit of work for Sky at the Majors and the world Golf Championships which keeps me relative and at events so that I can communicate with and see the elite players. And now this Olympic role is going to take up a lot of my time as well. I have a lot of balls in the air over the next two years and it is going to be a busy time.”

A platform

McGinley, who underwent another operation on his knee two weeks ago, which will keep him away from competition for a further six weeks, is adamant golf’s return to the Olympics offers a platform to further promote the sport.

“Having spoken to Rory and listened to him talking about it, he really embraces what this Olympics is about. He understands his role as the number one player in the world and the platform that he has to project the game of golf, he doesn’t underestimate how important it is to have golf in the Olympics.

“You’ll find Rory is very much up for this, he understands and is very mature about the role that he has to play as the number one player.”