ABU DHABI // Paul McGinley played in Abu Dhabi a year ago, though it all remains a bit of a blur, for good reason. Rest assured, nobody at the time was talking about his score.
“Not at this particular tournament, no,” he said, laughing.
On the eve of the 2013 event, McGinley was named captain of the European team for this year’s Ryder Cup, in an announcement made at the same hotel where the players are staying while competing in the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship this week.
Fifty-two weeks later, almost to the day, he was standing on the 18th green of the first round, with a putt for a share of the lead. The affable Irishman did not convert his birdie chance and finished with a 68, leaving him one shot behind a trio of co-leaders at Abu Dhabi Golf Club – representing an impressive gain in his performance.
McGinley, trying to juggle the seemingly impossible task of playing at a competent level while handling various captaincy responsibilities, is trying to master the art of multi-tasking. At times, it is even harder than it sounds.
“I’ve had to learn so many things, and one of them is compartmentalization,” he said. “When I am playing golf, I am playing golf. When I’m doing business, I’m doing business. When I’m doing media, I’m doing media. I am staying focused on each one of those. That’s one of the things I have had to learn and being very disciplined about.”
The golf compartment, it was noted, is looking well-stocked.
“I played kind of well the second half of last season,” he said. “I have played decent. A lot of consistency and obviously it carried over today.”
That said, the first half of the season was dizzying.
“To be honest, the first four or five months of last year were a complete write-off for me and I had to get my head around what the job was,” said McGinley, who finished 127th in the Race to Dubai last year. “I had a good idea, but in terms of meeting personnel on the tour and learning what everybody’s role is.”
Playing is a crucial part of the captaincy, he said. While he is more than familiar with the play of veterans Ryder Cuppers such as Luke Donald, Sergio Garcia and Henrik Stenson, a surge of younger players is on the way. He played yesterday with two youngsters, Thorbjorn Olesen and Tommy Fleetwood.
“It was a big information-gathering process for me, playing with guys like that,” he said. “The young guys, it’s a great opportunity to get to know them and their game. You can watch them on TV, but standing toe to toe with somebody is when you get an appreciation for their game.”
McGinley said he doubted that any of the younger set were intimidated by his presence. In fact, he made a joke of it.
“If they are nervous around me, they shouldn’t be playing in the Ryder Cup,” he said with a smile.
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