Paul McGinley smiles as he remembers the scenes in the team room.

It is September 2002, and over the opening two days of the Ryder Cup the Europeans are matching their American opponents, each side taking eight points ahead of the singles on the final day.

Sergio Garcia is the star of the European show, the 22-year-old forging an improbably successful partnership with Lee Westwood as they take three points from an available four. Their victims include Davis Love III, David Duval, Tiger Woods and Jim Furyk. And the Spaniard is still buzzing.

"He had played 36 holes and he came back in," McGinley recalls. "There was one TV in the team room, down in the corner. There were a few seats around it and he would go up to the far end where the buffet was, get his food, then sit with it on his lap and watch the highlights. He's just done 36 holes and he'd watch the highlights!

"Every time he came on, he'd stand up and tell everybody to watch the TV 'Watch this shot I'm about to play, watch this, watch what I did, watch the American, watch what he did after I did this.' There was such a sense of fun, exuberance and exhilaration just to be there for Sergio. The guy had spent nine hours on the golf course and there he was, reliving it all, engrossed in the highlights. That innocence is something that will always remain with me. I feel such a connection with Sergio for that because he was so raw back then."

Indeed he was, but it was actually McGinley who was the rookie that year. The Irishman had been a late developer in golf - largely on account of his previous focus on Gaelic football - while Garcia had been a supernova in the sport. In 1999, when the Ryder Cup was staged at Brookline, Garcia, just 19, had become the youngest player ever to compete in the competition.

The month before Brookline, Garcia had also come achingly close to becoming the youngest player to win a major in the modern era when he chased Tiger Woods all the way down the stretch at the PGA Championship at Medinah.

Garcia finished one shot behind the American, but the sport warmed to his energy and his impetuous shot-making. A star had been born, and the entire world of golf agreed that he would not have long to wait for his major. But they were wrong. Fifteen years later, Garcia is still waiting. As far as golf's most coveted championships are concerned, the only title he has collected is the one nobody wants: The Best Player Never to Win a Major.

He has come second four times - most recently at Hoylake just over two months ago - and has 19 top-10 finishes to his name, but still the biggies elude him. He holds third place in the current world rankings, but he is the only player in the top six without a major on his record.

Yet none of the others can match what he has done in the Ryder Cup. Like Colin Montgomerie before him, Garcia has consoled himself in the transatlantic team event.

This week's tournament at Gleneagles will be his seventh, and in his previous six he has run up a hugely impressive record. Of the 28 matches he has contested, he has won 16, lost eight and drawn four.

Tiger Woods' numbers come in at 13, 17 and three, making him the second most unsuccessful - in terms of losses sustained - American player in history.

But then Woods does have 14 majors on his record as well, so he can probably contain his grief on the matter. What, though, of Garcia?

If he ended his days as the most successful Ryder Cup player who ever lived - a scenario that is perfectly conceivable as he is still just 34 - would that achievement be compensation for his failure to put his name on any of the four trophies that dominate the sport?

The question was put to Garcia yesterday. "I don't know, it's difficult to see it that way," he replied.

"The Ryder Cup is very special for me, you all know how special it is, but majors are majors. The Ryder Cup is very important to me and it is something that makes me very proud, but hopefully I won't have that problem."

Increasingly, his ambition is shared by many golf fans. Yes, he had a certain charm when he first appeared on the scene, but over the next few years a petulant side to his character also emerged. It was much easier to admire Garcia's game than the man himself. But there has been an obvious mellowing in his personality - although not, thankfully, his game - of late.

His bearing at Hoylake was exemplary, and almost as impressive as the final round of 66 he put together to cut Rory McIlroy's overnight lead from nine shots down to two. There was a powerful impression that Garcia had finally grown up, and McGinley now appreciates the experience he brings more than the raw energy.

"He's a senior player," said McGinley. "He's got a big golfing cv behind him. He's been around a long, long time and he's a hell of a player."