Ryder cup is not focus here, says Clarke

Questions about the Ryder Cup keep popping up even though this is the EurAsia Cup. On Friday, even as Team Europe captain Darren Clarke, also Ryder Cup skipper, basked in the comfort of a three-point lead, there were questions on whether he was thinking about potential vice captains from the players who may not make the team.

Clarke sidestepped it, saying, “I’m thinking about this (EurAsia) and not Hazeltine. Hazeltine is irrelevant right now. No.” Captain’s picks

Later, however Clarke was asked whether the week would motivate Lee Westwood, his close friend for 20 years and partner in Ryder Cup, and Ian Poulter, another Ryder Cup superstar, to make the team.

Clarke said, “I don’t think either Poults nor Lee Westwood nor anybody else on this team here for that matter needs any extra motivation to try and make the team.

“Would I expect Lee and Poults to get close to the team at the end of the year Definitely expect them to get close. The selections come September, wild cards will probably be based upon who is already on the team.” Dubuisson, the Man!

Victor Dubuisson, the only European team member to have played in the EurAsia Cup, locked his knee on the 15th green, but chose to carry on, after receiving treatment from a on-course physio. That prompted his playing fourball partner, Soren Kjeldsen, to say, “He was brave about it, from the beginning. He kept saying: ‘It will be fine, it will be fine. I just can’t bend my leg’.

“And he got up there and hit a really good drive there on 16, standing on one leg. There was a bit of old Tiger in that. He plays golf like a man, and you could feel it the last three holes.” Back to school

Asked when was the last he had carried a notebook during a golf tournament, Jeev Milkha Singh, who logged quite a few miles in his cart on Friday, laughed and shot back, “Possibly school.”

And then, he added, “If I had prepared so much before tournaments, I would have won at least a couple of Majors.”