United States will look to continue home dominance at next month's Ryder Cup, but has the debate around captain Keegan Bradley's role helped Team USA find form ahead of Bethpage Black?
Bradley will take charge of Team USA in the eagerly-awaited contest, live from September 26-28 on SportNews, where the hosts will look to regain the trophy after Luke Donald led Europe to victory in Rome in 2023.
The narrative throughout the qualification campaign was dominated on whether Bradley would earn an automatic qualification spot and become the first playing captain since Arnold Palmer in 1963, then about whether he would name himself as a pick to take on a dual role.
Bradley won the Travelers Championship in June and continued to show form throughout the summer, posting top-20 finishes in the final two events of the FedExCup Playoffs, leaving him still "unsure" over his decision just days before announcing his captain's picks.
The discussion has left uncertainty over how any decision could impact Team USA, although former European Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley - a strategic adviser to Donald's team, believes it may have helped galvanise many of Bradley's players.
"I think it's certainly folly on our [European] side if we're thinking that America are a bit dishevelled, they're all over the place, they don't know what they're doing and they don't know if they're coming or going," McGinley told the SportNews Golf podcast.
"I think that is a very, very dangerous territory there and I can tell you for certain that that is nowhere near the mindset of Luke Donald and what he's giving to the players. We are not going to underestimate the magnitude of this challenge.
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"It's an American team that have found quite a bit of form in the last four weeks. Four or five weeks ago, we [Team Europe] were a lot more giddy than we are now in terms of where the American team was.
"They're in a better spot than they were four or five weeks ago and I think there's a bit of energy about them, because of this debate. It's giving them energy, it's giving fuel, it's creating a lot of debate in the media and it's creating a lot of debate in the public.
"That's all positive when you're playing at home, because you want to stoke the fire and you want people's emotions at a high pitch. I think all of this stuff is stoking emotion and that's going to be a big part of what Keegan is going to try to do in terms of playing the crowd."
Patrick Cantlay enhanced his chances of a captain's pick with a tied-second finish at the Tour Championship, where Cameron Young - who claimed a breakthrough victory at the Wyndham Championship - earned a share of fourth and was among nine American players inside the top 11.
On whether the possibility of a playing role for Bradley has been disruptive to Team USA's potential players, McGinley added: "There's no evidence to think that it has been. Just look at the players that have really come into form and pushed themselves over the line the last four or five weeks.
"He's got guys like Young and [Sam] Burns. Last week we saw Cantlay, then [Ben] Griffin has played quite well, so you've got a number of players who have made a dash for the line and don't seem to be distracted."
Team Europe will retain the bulk of their line-up from their 2023 win in Rome, with Donald looking to become the first captain to win successive Ryder Cups and lead them to a first away victory since the 'Miracle at Medinah' in 2012.
"We're looking at this Ryder Cup very differently than we've ever done before in terms of an away match and the preparation is leaving no stone unturned," McGinley insisted. "We know the magnitude and the difficulty of what we're facing in New York.
"America are going to be strong - don't let anybody kind of con you into believing that they're not going to be strong. They're going to be nothing but strong. It's a very patriotic crowd. It's a very patriotic captain. It's going to be a very noisy atmosphere.
"It's New York crowds at their best and there's nothing surer than it's going to be very, very difficult, so we've got to be absolutely on our game. We're trying to come at this away match very differently than any away match we've ever come at before."
Listen to the full Paul McGinley interview on the latest edition of the SportNews Golf podcast, hosted every week by Jamie Weir. Subscribe now on , or , while vodcast editions can be found on the .
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