As he stood outside the stonewashed clubhouse that's reminiscent of an old Irish manor house, Paul McGinley - who'd achieved his immediate aim of at least surviving the midway cut in the 86th US PGA Championship at Whistling Straits - pondered his fate and the words of the Kenny Rogers song The Gambler came to his mind.

"You know," remarked McGinley, "as the song goes, 'you gotta know when to hold them, you gotta know when to fold them' - and that's really such a huge big part in professional golf."

His reference was to a poor decision on the 10th hole in yesterday's second round that led to a double-bogey six on the way to a 74, which left him on one-under-par 143 going into the weekend.

McGinley added: "I got bitten by a bad decision, because I wasn't in a place to attack. If it had been somewhere in Baltray, a course that I know really well, I'd have given a lot more respect. I got penalised. I didn't get unlucky because I should not have been there in the first place (in the rough)."

He'd hit his three-wood off the tee into the right rough and, faced with an approach of 105 yards, got greedy and went for the pin rather than playing for the right of the green, making two putts "and just getting out of there". Instead, he pulled the approach into a bunker, could only come out backwards over the back of the green, chipped to 20 feet and two-putted for a horrible double bogey.

So, it was a lesson learned the hard way for McGinley, that double bogey coming at a rocky stage of his round after he'd bogeyed two of the previous three holes.

Rather than folding, though, he battled on and covered the remaining eight holes in one-under.

"Ah, they were stupid, stupid dropped shots," he later claimed. "I didn't play my best. I battled, because things weren't flowing."

For McGinley, this PGA - his first major in America this season - is a huge tournament. With one eye on qualifying for the Ryder Cup, the Dubliner has an opportunity to make significant ground on those immediately ahead of him in the European points standing; and next week he's also in the field for the NEC Invitational at Akron, where seven of the eight players immediately ahead of him in the current qualifying table won't be playing.

Indeed, the hero of the Belfry two years ago is intent on making the team by continuing to play well, rather than rely on any favours from captain Bernhard Langer.

"I think I've got to qualify," he said. "I don't want to entertain the thoughts that I might get a pick. I don't want to mentally go down that road. If it happens, it happens. My mental process is not based on any possible wild card because there are so many great players in with a chance of a pick. I've three events left (up to the BMW International) and destiny is in my hand. If I play well enough, I'll make it."

Of those immediately ahead of him in the table and also chasing Ryder Cup berths, Paul Casey, David Howell, Ian Poulter, Joakim Haeggman, Jean Francois Remesy, Raphael Jacquelin and Brian Davis are not going to Akron. McGinley earned his invite as a member of the 2002 Ryder Cup team.

He knows, though, that a good weekend by the shores of Lake Michigan could go a long way toward making that Ryder Cup team again. Yesterday, the course played "a hell of a lot tougher", he said, than it did on the first day.

And McGinley expects it to get even tougher as the championship progresses, when decision making will be all important.

"If I'm going to make the Ryder Cup, I am going to have to make up some ground and, to do that, I need high finishes. I've got to put it to the back of my mind when I go out to play the course. I've got to take each hole individually. I've got to play it one shot at a time."

Getting back to the gambling theme of the Kenny Rogers song, McGinley remarked: "A lot's going to be dictated by the conditions. I am not going to all of a sudden just go for it. I think you've got to be clever. A lot will depend on if the course gets tricky, or if the greens get firmer, or if the wind blows.

"If those conditions happen, then two 71s are going to propel you right up that leaderboard. Now, if it gets like it did yesterday, with the wind in the opposite direction . . . and the course yields a lot of birdies, then you can go for it."