A Ryder Cup featuring David Lynn?
It seems as unlikely as Rangers playing East Stirlingshire in a league game. Strange things do happen, of course. While the journeyman golfer from the Potteries is still a rank outsider for a European berth, the 38-year-old will travel to Gleneagles for this week's Johnnie Walker Championship, the final counting event for qualifying, still clinging to the hope that he can barge his way into Jose Maria Olazabal's line-up for next month's clash with the US in Chicago.
Lynn's remarkable runners-up finish in the US PGA Championship at Kiawah Island last Sunday thrust the largely unheralded Englishman into the picture. It would take a super-human effort to pull it off, but you never know.
"I suppose if I did win at Gleneagles and was 11th or something on the rankings I would have a chance of a wild card," said Lynn, who will take inspiration from the last-gasp exploits of Edoardo Molinari two years ago when the Italian birdied the last three holes to win the Johnnie Walker crown and plunder a Ryder Cup wild card. "I'm just glad to be part of the conversation, to be honest."
The conversations about the Ryder Cup will dominate the £1.4 million championship, an event which should lead to Paul Lawrie finally rubber-stamping his place in the team for the first time in 13 years. Olazabal will unveil his two captain's picks on the Monday after the contest with the names of Sergio Garcia, Nicolas Colsaerts, Padraig Harrington and, now even, Lynn, being tossed around. Garcia and Colsaerts are both still in the automatic hunt, and were trying to bolster their hopes in the Wyndham Championship in the US this weekend. Colsaerts, the World Matchplay champion, will also make the dash to Scotland for one final push.
Amid the all-consuming Ryder Cup story, there will be an important, if less publicised, sub-plot involving a host of home hopefuls in the Gleneagles field. The championship is the first regular European Tour event for almost a month and those involved in the scramble to safeguard their playing rights for the main circuit will be desperate to get cracking again.
For Craig Lee and Alastair Forsyth, who sit 114th and 116th respectively on the Race to Dubai and are right on the mark in terms of the card-retaining places, this week's shoot-out could make or break their seasons with tournaments rapidly running out.
Forsyth, who began the season with a fifth-place finish in the Africa Open, has struggled to replicate that form since. Without a full category for the tour and left to feed off the scraps, the invitation to the Gleneagles showpiece has been welcomed.
Lee, meanwhile, made a significant leap up the order with a seventh-place finish in the Irish Open last month but the Stirling man has missed his last two cuts and finds himself in a perilous position again. Gary Orr, at 149th, and Steven O'Hara, in 178th, could also do with a lift, while Marc Warren, safely tucked in at No 46 on the rankings and the winner of the Gleneagles title in 2007, will make his first competitive appearance since he claimed a share of third in July's Scottish Open at Castle Stuart.
Nick Rodger
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