McIlroy Demonstrates Team-Player Cred By Showing Up To 7:30 A.M Meetings...Early!

Seems young Rory has shed the label as an anti-Ryder Cup villain and is now aligned to not only star at Celtic Manor next year, but just moved ahead of Monty in the 2036 Ryder Cup captaincy race. Iain Carter blogs:

The 20-year-old did so while praising his captain Paul McGinley - the real star of the four sun-blessed days at Saint-Nom-La-Breteche. "Every team meeting was at half-seven this week and I actually looked forward to being in those team meetings," McIlroy said.

"I was usually turning up at quarter-past seven because there was such a buzz about them. You had all the lads in there with their ideas and Paul has a load of great ideas, especially with the team format, the foursomes and the four-balls."

It was interesting to see Mark Reason display a slight fissure in the all-things-Rory coverage:

Fourteen under par for 34 holes of better ball would be pretty fancy golf, but McDowell and McIlroy were playing greensomes and foursomes – phenomenal. The Northern Irish boys relish playing in the top match and they headed what is turning into an annihilation. GB&I take a seven-point lead over Europe into the final day of the Vivendi Trophy.

The pom-poms will be out for McIlroy again, but give some respect to McDowell. The older of the Northern Irishmen is proving himself a formidable match player. He doesn't make many mistakes and he holes a bucketful of momentum-building putts.