ONLY 100 days to go to the Ryder Cup and only 10 weeks to make the side – good news for Paul Lawrie, bad for Paul Casey.
Missing last week’s US Open was a calculated move by Lawrie as he tries to earn a second cap 13 years after his first.
It could have backfired, but it didn’t. He dropped only from second to third in the points race and so the 43-year-old Scot is close to clinching his place as he returns to action at the BMW International Open in Cologne tomorrow.
Missing the San Francisco action was not part of Casey’s plan, however. After a setback in his recovery from the shoulder dislocation he suffered snowboarding on Christmas Eve the former world number three pulled out of the season’s second major.
Casey is now hoping for the best in Germany, but, at 30th in the cup standings, he has no more time to lose.
“I think I’m done with the recovery. I just need to get the golf game back now – I just need to play,” he said. “If I get going I still firmly believe I can qualify. It’s a case of winning golf events and that’s all I can focus on. I’m not going to focus on the alternative, which is not making the team.”
Aware that his whole game “needs sharpening up” the 34-year-old’s aim is to “go out and make a bunch of birdies and enjoy it. And from there just start cranking up the intensity and focus”.
Casey is also entered for the French Open in a fortnight and may add the Scottish Open at Castle Stuart the week before he heads to Royal Lytham, the course on which he made a successful defence of the English amateur title in 2000.
Casey plays the first two rounds with Retief Goosen and Thomas Bjorn. The South African finished joint 10th last week, but Bjorn missed the cut.
Lawrie, paired with big-hitting duo John Daly and Alvaro Quiros, has laughed off being wrongly named throughout Colin Montgomerie’s new autobiography.
All references to his 1999 Open victory and Ryder Cup debut that season talk of Peter rather than Paul, but Lawrie said: “He’s sent me a text to say it’ll be changed for the second run of the book. It’s not really an issue, but it’s funny.”
Montgomerie is back from his commentating work in America to try to re-ignite his career and will also be at Sunningdale next week trying to qualify for the British Open – a championship which Lawrie is exempt for until he passes 60.
Martin Kaymer, Sergio Garcia and Bernhard Langer, now 54, are also in this week’s field trying for a title won in Munich last June by Pablo Larrazabal after a five-hole play-off with Garcia.
The lowdown
Course: Golf Club Gut Lärchenhof, Cologne, Germany.
Course designer: Jack Nicklaus (opened in 1996).
Prize money: €2 million
(winner gets €333,330).
Length: 7,289 yards.
Par: 72.
Field: 156.
The layout: Water hazards on 50 per cent of the holes; tight fairways in landing area. Outside the maintained rough there is long, white, wispy grass.
Irish in action: Shane Lowry, Michael Hoey, Paul McGinley, Damien McGrane, Simon Thornton Gareth Maybin.
Defending champion: Pablo Larrazabal.
Weather forecast: Dry and cool with the odd shower.
On TV: Live on Sky Sports 1
this morning from 10.30am.
