Busy McGinley determined to talk a good game
European Ryder Cup Captain, Paul McGinley announces The McGinley Foundation as the fourth and final charity of The 2014 Ryder Cup. The announcement was made ahead of the 2013 Johnnie Walker ChampionshipPicture: Stuart Adams www.golftourimages.comEuropean Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley has been polishing his public speaking skills with a specialist coach ahead of what promises to be a gruelling 11 month schedule.
While the Dubliner has no problem with nerves when it comes to addressing large groups of people, his future schedule contains so many speaking engagements that he is determined to be as professional as possible.
Getting his schedule right is paramount for the father of three who wants to remain as competitive as possible while giving the Ryder Cup job his all.
He’s in such demand that his feet have hardly touched the ground since he landed the job in January and with course design and playing commitments to juggle alongside public speaking engagements and his Ryder Cup work, he knows he has to be careful.
Photo Eoin Clarke/www.golffile.ie“I am in New York and Boston for five days next week on business,” McGinley explained in Portugal on Sunday before going on to outline his schedule after next week’s BMW Masters, where is the lone sponsor’s invitation in the field and any prize money earned will not count towards the Race to Dubai.
“Then I am coming back here to Portugal as I am redesigning the North Course at Quinta de Lago. Then I am meant to be playing the India Open and then I will be in Dubai commentating for Sky.
“So that’s another five weeks travelling on the trot having just come off four weeks on the trot, so that’s nine weeks away. I am going to do my head in if I do that. To be honest, as the week went on in Portugal my energy levels just declined.
“I already way into working on my schedule for next year and trying to get it right, get than balance right.
“I have a lot of business commitments myself outside of Ryder Cup duties and I have playing schedule along with my duties with Sky as well spending time with my family, making sure we work in the kids’ school holidays. There are a lot of balls in the air and trying to fit everything in is not easy.”
McGinley’s US trip is at the behest of the Irish-American business community and while he had public speaking training during his business studies in Dublin and the US before turning professional, he wants to make his presentation even more professional.
“”The Irish/American community are keen to get me over and I will also be doing some work with Ernst and Young on Wall St. They are a top tier sponsor of the Ryder Cup as well so I am going there with the Ryder Cup trophy on Monday. There will be no business on the golf course and I’m doing some public speaking.
“I will be undertaking a lot of public speaking so I feel I need to bring myself up to a professional level. I have been having some training with a girl in London. It’s not about my presentation, it is about my content and chronologically getting my content correct. 
Paul McGinley gives a golf clinic at a new academy he has opened in Ghana. “There is girl in London and I have had three sessions with her now, which is just organising my content. My presentation itself is good because I was fortunate in that during the five years I went to college, public speaking was part of my courses in marketing and international business every year.
“I can’t be amateurish when I am standing up to speak and I am trying to make it professional - there are so many facets to the things that I am doing that I am trying to upgrade. I am trying to do everything to the best of my ability and if that means getting in some help from somebody to help me in certain areas, I will do it.”
Sam Torrance, who is hotly tipped to become one of McGinley’s vice captains at Gleneagles next year, famously had public speaking training from professional after dinner speaker Professor David Purdie ahead of the 2002 Ryder Cup.
“The hardest part of captaining was the public speaking,” Torrance said later.
Paul McGinley gets his hands dirty in Ghana. “Sam gave me the idea,” McGinley confessed. “But Sam didn’t have the training I did. Remember, I had five years training in public speaking at university, presenting in front of hundreds of your peers. So I am over at hurdle. It is the actual content of what I am doing. The sessions last half a day normally. I don’t actually present to her. It is just getting my thoughts down.”
Getting his head around his schedule for the next 11 months is a big challenge and it will involve plenty of air miles.
“I have go to Ghana too because I have been working on a golf course redesign project in Accra,” McGinley explained. “We are at the final stage of the redesign of Achimota Golf Club in Ghana and I have to go down for three or four days before the seed comes up and I want to walk through the grass everywhere and walk the whole golf course.”
A trip to the Hero Honda Indian Open, which clashes with next month’s Turkish Airlines Open on the European Tour, is also on the horizon followed by a trip to Dubai to commentate for Sky on the DP World Tour Championship.
The 2014 European Tour Schedule will be released during the week of the season-ending event, giving McGinley a chance to plan his year in detail.
He hasn’t had a week off since he travelled with the family to Barbados following August’s US PGA at Oak Hill.
As the initial Ryder Cup tumult has died down, McGinley has begun to play better golf. He missed six of his first eight cuts this year but has made six out of the last seven since July.
Paul McGinley during a Wednesday practice round. Photo Eoin Clarke/www.golffile.ieThe downside of making cuts is that he has yet to see his 13-year son Killian captain the school soccer team at centre half.
“I haven’t seen him play one game this season and they’ve only lost one of 10 matches,” McGinley said.
Grinning, he added: “They play on a Wednesday and a Saturday and because I have made every cut, I am not home for the Saturday matches. If I was missing cuts. I’d be back.”