Paul McGinley had two prime objectives at the Bridgestone Invitational in Akron today - to forget what had happened playing with Tiger Woods and to make the job of those trying to knock him off the European Ryder Cup team as tough as possible.
Ninth in the points race with just next week's event in Munich to come, McGinley had managed to score only 77 and 75 playing with halfway leader Woods and went into the weekend 76th of the 78-strong field on 12 over par.
The Dubliner had finished his second round with a double bogey six amid all the confusion and chaos of Woods firing his second shot on to the clubhouse roof and then being given a free drop.
That was because the rules officials said they established within the permitted five minutes that the ball was picked up by a chef when it dropped into a loading area and, with the whole area not out of bounds, there was no penalty.
When McGinley resumed with another double bogey six he dropped to joint last, but he finished the front nine with a hat-trick of birdies and, while 73rd out of 78 still did not sound great, every Ryder Cup point could prove vital.
The 2002 match-winning hero, unbeaten in the record-breaking win two years ago, was back in a situation he had hoped to avoid.
Following his win in the Volvo Masters last October McGinley was fourth in the points race and said: "My main focus is to cement my cup spot. I'm 90 per cent there, but the job's not done and it's important to get that polished off and put away.
"Both times I've made the team I've had to do it at the end both times. Last time I played 10 events in a row to make it and it would be nice to avoid that."
The man immediately behind him in the standings, Jose Maria Olazabal, was going well after 36 holes, two under par and joint 11th.
But McGinley's hopes of a third cap still looked good. Eleventh-placed Paul Broadhurst did not qualify for this week's tournament and, with the Irishman guaranteed at least £16,000, he will have to finish first or second at the BMW International to get past him. And that is if McGinley misses the cut there.
Broadhurst might not be the biggest danger, though. Thomas Bjorn, 15th on the table, was one under par when he teed off again today and had the chance to close the gap considerably.
