Golf”s two top-ranked in Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods have led the praise in the appointment of Paul McGinley to captain the 2014 European Ryder Cup side.

McGinley, 46 becomes the first-ever Irish-born captain in the 85-year old history of the Ryder Cup.

However it had been an anxious night for McGinley who had been asked to leave the room and elected to return to his St. Regis hotel room before invited back to the meeting where he was met and informed by Committee Chairman, Thomas Bjorn of his Gleneagles appointment.

And McGinley won the right to replace Jose Maria Olazabal ahead of four other candidates – the Scottish trio of Sandy Lyle, Colin Montgomerie and Paul Lawrie along Spain’s Miguel Angel Jimenez.

The double Major winning McIlroy had been uncharacteristically outspoken the past few days in his support of McGinley including using the launch on Monday of his signing with Nike to publically back the player double his age.

“I’m absolutely thrilled for Paul. As soon as I found out he had been appointed captain I couldn’t wait to rush down and congratulate him,” said McIlroy.

“I’ve been saying all along that the captaincy should be a one-time only deal because there are so many candidates waiting for their chance and Paul definitely comes into that category.

“I’d like to think it means something when you’ve got players like myself, Ian Poulter, Luke Donald and Justin Rose all voicing their opinion that they want Paul to captain the team.

“I would like to think that our opinions are valuable, and that the decision would be based on that, at elast to some extent.”

The 18-time Major winning Woods, who is competing alongside McIlroy for the first two rounds of this week’s Abu Dhabi Championship, said;  “I’ve got to get to know Paul pretty well over the years and moreso over the last two Ryder Cups given his role as a vice-captain.

“He’s going to make a great European Ryder Cup captain as I’ve seen for myself how popular he is and how well he’s liked by everybody.

“So I can see Paul being a good rival to Tom (Watson), and our American Team will need to give him every respect given also he’s got such great record for Europe.”

And Padraig Harrington, and now one of McGinley’s friends on the Tour, has extra reason to qualify for Gleneagles.

“I look forward to it big-time and I honestly feel he is the right man to go up against Tom Watson,” said Harrington.

“In my view you would rather have Tom Watson remain at his level rather than have someone trying to compete against him in that battle so Paul is ideal.

“The key point was that if you polled the players on the Tour he seemed to have had the support.

“Paul’s got a great grounding in team sport and he’s drawn on that in his golf.

“He’s played in three Ryder Cups and a further two as a vice-captain, and he’s got the Vivendi Trophy where he’s been a winning captain twice.

“The great thing about our European captains nowadays is that they tend to come with a lot of experience ‘of’ the Ryder Cup. They know the players very well who make the team and so on.

“Paul has been involved in the Ryder Cup for so many years and that’s where experience is vital.”