"That the European Tour could come to a decision less than two weeks after the Meltdown at Medinah is truly remarkable."

Fantastically cranky stuff from Brian Keogh as he senses that Paul McGinley has been pushed aside for Lee Westwood's favorite public speaker Darren Clarke in the 2014 Ryder Cup captaincy stakes.

It’s a fait accompli anyway if you believe Her Majesty’s Press and one that will prove “popular with club golfers up and down the land, who identify with Clarke’s obvious struggles with his volcanic temperament on the course and his love of a pint off it.”

If that’s the case, so much for the transparency of the selection process, the opinion of the Tournament Players Committee and the general intelligence level of the sporting public, who have surely learned to see beyond the comic cut caricature of Clarke’s public persona.

Clarke, McGinley and captaincy candidates Thomas Bjorn and Miguel Angel Jimenez are also members of that august Committee alongside Colin Montgomerie, Felipe Aguilar, Paul Casey, Gonzalo Fernandez Castaño, Richard Finch, Joakim Haeggman, David Howell, Robert Karlsson, Barry Lane or Henrik Stenson.

Perhaps they’ve all agreed already that there really is just one man for the job given Clarke’s inexorable slide into irrelevance as a player since he captured the 2011 Open Championship at Royal St George’s.

And...

It’s not that Clarke would be poor but is he really a better candidate for the job that McGinley who led two understrength GB&I teams to Seve Trophy victories and played a blinder as a vice-captain in 2010 and this year. It’s certainly debatable and that the European Tour could come to a decision less than two weeks after the Meltdown at Medinah is truly remarkable.