How I see the European Ryder Cup team taking shape

NICK Dougherty went a long way towards achieving two of his main goals when he won the recent Alfred Dunhill Links Championship at St Andrews.

The victory obliterated all doubts over whether the 25-year-old Liverpudlian had the inner strength to add to his sole tour title at the 2005 Caltex Masters, and it also gave him a massive head start in his quest to earn a place on the 2008 European Ryder Cup side.

The Englishman (pictured below) had amassed no fewer than 12 top-20 European Tour finishes this season prior to arriving at the Old Course but, if he did have a weakness, it was his seeming inability to turn solid performances into victories.

Dougherty had led as many as 10 tour events over the previous 12 months but failed to win any of them, so it says a great deal about him that he was able to recover from bogeys at both the 1st and 2nd holes to post a final-round 71 and win one of the most prestigious titles on tour.

It also suggests he is a solid bet to go on to consolidate a place in his mentor Nick Faldo's Ryder Cup side and it is unlikely he will be the only rookie involved.

Europe's recent Ryder Cup successes have been built around a solid core of five or six key golfers but that is not to say the composition of the team has not changed at all. Far from it.

There might only have been two European rookies at the most recent match in Ireland but there were five in 2004, four in 2002, five in 1999, six in 1997 and in all likelihood there will be a similar number for next year's match at Valhalla.

That list of first-timers is likely to be headed by the increasingly impressive Justin Rose who has risen to the periphery of the world's top 10 with a victory in the MasterCard Masters in Australia and solid performances in all four Majors and several of the World Golf Championship events.

I would suggest that both Rose and Dougherty are near certainties to line up behind Faldo in Kentucky and I would not be surprised in the slightest if they were joined by Welshman Bradley Dredge and Dane Soren Hansen, both of whom have registered several good results this season and also performed well at the recent Seve Trophy in Ireland.

However, if it is longer shots you are after, look no further than Zane Scotland and Rory McIlroy, both of whom have appeared from nowhere to make a huge impact on the European Tour this summer.

Scotland first sprung to prominence back in 1999 when he became the youngest Englishman ever to qualify for The Open. Subsequently, however, he struggled, primarily due to a debilitating neck injury, sustained in a serious car accident.

The Englishman's fortunes took a turn for the better when his father persuaded him to enter qualifying for the French Open. Despite having to drive through the night to get there, he secured a spot in the championship, claimed a share of 12th place that Sunday and has gone on from there to earn his tour card for next season.

Only a handful of players, including Sergio Garcia, Adam Scott and Paul Casey, have ever earned a card from so few starts but even they were eclipsed by the subsequent performance of McIlroy.

Following his third place behind Dougherty at St Andrews McIlroy will now be surrounded by hyperbole wherever he plays but, if anyone can handle all the attention, it is this precocious 18-year-old from Holywood.

His manager, Chubby Chandler, who also looks after Darren Clarke, says McIlroy has been signing autographs in Northern Ireland since he was 13, so it seems little will faze the youngster who played in the Walker Cup in September.

McIlroy has already impressed many of his peers, including a man who may line up against Europe in Valhalla in less than 12 months' time.

After playing alongside him during this year's Open Championship at Carnoustie, where McIlroy won the Silver Medal awarded to the leading amateur, veteran American Scott Verplank said: "He's 18, looks 14 and plays like he's 28".

Clearly, it is this old head on young shoulders that might enable him to emulate Mark James, Sandy Lyle and Tiger Woods by moving straight from a Walker Cup team into the next Ryder Cup.

Personally, I think McIlroy will make it to Kentucky, where he will be joined (in no particular order) by Padraig Harrington, Justin Rose, Henrik Stenson, Nick Dougherty, Lee Westwood, Sergio Garcia, Luke Donald, Paul Casey, Niclas Fasth, Ian Poulter and Colin Montgomerie.

There, you heard it here first.