World Golf Championship: These days, Paul McGinley's wishlist appears suitably grand to keep a trusty old genie on overtime for an aeon. As his status in the game has grown, so have his ambitions.

Some day, he'd like to be Europe's Ryder Cup captain. Why not? He's the most articulate player on the European Tour and a member of its tournament committee to boot.

But all that's a long way down the road. More immediately, he'd like to win some tournaments.

"What's it? Three wins?" McGinley asks of his strike-rate in almost 13 years as a touring professional, shaking his head at the starkest statistic in the book.

It's one you can't quibble with, but, as the 37-year-old faces into the WGC-American Express Championship at Mount Juliet, it is also not quite as simple as it would appear. For instance, he's mustered eight top 10s on the European Tour this season alone, and, of them, two have been runners-up finishes.

Professional golfers walk a thin line between winning and applauding their conqueror. In McGinley's case, that line has been thinner than most.

"I do feel I actually have more wins (in my career). I feel I've been unlucky, too . . . David Lynn played the golf of his life to win (the KLM Dutch Open) in Holland, and I played fantastic too (and) Mark O'Meara played well in Dubai (in the Desert Classic)," he remarked of his two second-place finishes this year.

"It's difficult to win. You've got to really play fantastically to win now. You've got to do something special . . . I haven't done it. Yes, it does disturb me that I've only won three times. I feel I'd like to certainly add to my tournament wins."

Where better than at Mount Juliet? Two years ago, when the championship was last played here, McGinley's form was such that he'd fallen out of the world's top 50 and his position on the Volvo Order of Merit wasn't good enough to earn him a place.

Ironically, the following week he was to emerge as the hero of the Ryder Cup at the Belfry, holing the winning putt. Equally ironically, that putt meant he was dragged here, there and everywhere in the following months and his form dipped.

In time, he'd like to be captain.

"I'd love to be captain some day. I think everybody who has played in the Ryder Cup would love to be captain. It's a wonderful honour. Who knows, down the road? But I'm a long way from that yet . . . you never know, some day."

Now, though, McGinley's rebirth as a player has brought its own rewards, like claiming a second appearance in the Ryder Cup and a career-best sixth place finish in a major, at last month's US PGA. If there are those who believe the world rankings are loaded in favour of US Tour events, then McGinley's feat in moving from 157th last December to 67th confirms his upward graph.

These days, the vibes are good. Apart from actually winning tournaments, he's delivering the goods and knocking at the door more frequently than ever.

Is he playing the best golf of his life?

"I think the results show it," he said. "I've said it before, the Ryder Cup team was the hardest Ryder Cup team to have made in Europe. We had such a strong team. I think that to make that, everybody had to play wonderful golf. I think the results show that, yes, I am playing the best golf."

More than that, being part of the team appears to have heightened confidence and expectations.

"The fact that I've made two Ryder Cup teams is a reflection of the way I've played over a long period of time and not over a short window, where I made one team and sort of faded out.

"The way I performed in this Ryder Cup, too. I feel I performed better than I did in the last one. I was more comfortable in the environment. The pressure felt exactly the same, but I've moved on a little bit and I was able to handle things the right way."

Given the way he performed in making the Ryder Cup team, the way he performed at Oakland Hills and, also, the way he played at the US PGA at Whistling Straits, it would be fair to suggest McGinley has really taken a step forward in his career this season.

Yet, that winless streak irks. His only European Tour wins (he also has four Irish PGA Championship titles) came in the Austrian Open in 1996, the Oki Pro-Am in Spain in 1997 and the Wales Open in 2001. For someone of McGinley's ambitions, that's not a sufficiently good strike-rate.

Of his expectations this week, McGinley admitted: "I'm rearing to go, playing in front of the Irish crowd. It hurt not playing here the last time when it was a week before the Ryder Cup, but I've qualified this time and I'm looking forward to a good week and competing and getting out there."

These days, it seems, McGinley has raised his expectations. Instead of waiting for the genie to fulfil wishes, he's making his own dreams come true.