Reigning Irish Open Paul Casey continues to stake his claims in a return to next year’s Ryder Cup after another impressive display on day two of the Seve Trophy in France.
The Englishman played in three Ryder Cups from 2004 before being controversially overlooked by Colin Montgomerie as a ‘wildcard’ pick in favour of Padraig Harrington for the 2010 Celtic Manor encounter.
Casey had been a star of the 2006 Ryder Cup at the K. Club when he aced the 14th and teaming with David Howell to thrash the USA pairing of Stewart Cink and Zack Johnson.
Paul Casey ‘just loving’ being back in team competition. (Photo – www.golffile.ie)
Casey and Seve Trophy team partner, Simon Khan are undefeated in this year’s event and after halving their first round match they easily accounted for the Scandinavian duo of Thorbjorn Olesen and Mikko Illonen 3 & 2 on day two.
It was the first of three victories for Sam Torrance’s GB & I side who now head into the Saturday morning Foursomes trailing 4 ½ to 5 ½ points.
Last year’s Irish Open champion, Jamie Donaldson finished with an eagle and four birdies over his last five holes playing alongside Scot Marc Warren to score a 4 & 2 victory over the now winless pair of Thomas Bjorn and Miguel Angel Jimenez.
The biggest surprise on day two was the 6 & 5 drubbing handed out to the all-Scotland pair of Paul Lawrie and Stephen Gallacher by the unbeaten duo of Nicolas Colsaerts and Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano.
No sooner had Casey and Khan won their match and this year’s Carton House winning hero was back on course cheering on his GB & I team mates.
“I am just loving this,” said a smiling Casey.
“I’ve always love match-play. Some will say this is just the Seve Trophy. I don’t care because this great and I just love team competition.
“There is a lot of pride at stake this week.
“And while Sam (Torrance) is our captain, Paul’s (McGinley) been great as he is popping up all over the course and he just popped up on the 15th green so he’s all over the place.
“We were out to dinner with him the other night and he showed us the motivational video from last year’s Ryder Cup and that was great.
“And I expect a lot of his 12 players to come from the 20 here this week.”
But while Torrance and Olazabal along with McGinley have been singing Casey’s praise this week the current World No. 107 is playing down the likelihood of teeing-up at Gleneagles.
“I’m treating this week as a partial stepping stone to a possible Ryder Cup return next year,” said Casey.
“Paul was saying to everybody playing this week in France, it you get into a situation where you’ve not made the team and you’re up for a possible wildcard pick next year, then he will take into account how we stand up this week and how we play and the records and how we handle the pressure.
“It’s nice to hear him say he will play attention to that.
“So you can certainly do yourself a big favour by winning your matches this week.”
