European captain Seve Ballesteros has paired Paul McGinley with Graeme McDowell for the opening foursomes session of the inaugural Royal Trophy in Bangkok tomorrow.
The Irish partnership will face India's Arjun Atwal and Jyoti Randhawa as Europe bid to open their account on a winning note.
“It is great to play with one of the experienced players and we have a good strong side,” said McDowell today. “It is going to be a tough tussle but if we play our normal game we should be okay. They have the advantage of home territory, the weather and course should suit them very well.
"But this is always a format I feel I do well in. I thrive on the team atmosphere, it gets me going and I always enjoy matchplay and feel I have a good record in it. I am looking forward to the weekend.”
Ballesteros has also placed his faith in wildcard picks Nick Faldo and Ian Woosnam who will contest Saturday's final foursomes match with Thai stars Thongchai Jaidee and Thaworn Wiratchant, who are the Asian team's top players over the past two seasons.
Ballesteros, who has won three times as a captain in other events, said: "I really want to win as I don't want to end my record. I won the Ryder Cup as a captain, I won the Seve Trophy as a captain and I want to win this as a captain too.
"We are taking the competition very seriously. I'm proud of this great team, it's the best possible one from Europe and I'm looking forward to competing against the Asian team."
The respect Ballesteros has among his peers is evident and McGinley said it was playing under the Spaniard that was one of the draws of the event.
"Any opportunity I get to represent Europe is a great honour, especially a team captained by Seve," he stated. "I grew up with Seve as my hero and so to be in the same team with him, Nick Faldo and Ian Woosnam is a big thing for me."
In the other foursomes, David Howell and Kenneth Ferrie square up to SK Ho and Keiichiro Fukabori, while Thomas Bjorn and Henrik Stenson meet Yasuharu Imano and Zhang Lian-wei.
Four fourball matches will also be played on Saturday with eight singles matches on Sunday at the Amata Spring Country Club, just south of Bangkok.
