Johnny Walker Championship preview: Fisher can outshine FedEx four
This week's Johnny Walker Championship offers players on the European Tour a last-gasp opportunity to wangle themselves a spot in one of the nine automatic Ryder Cup qualifying places - or at least stake a possible claim for one of captain Colin Montgomerie's three wildcard picks, before all is revealed on Sunday night.
This year, those picks are at a premium, with four world-class players in Paul Casey, Luke Donald, Padraig Harrington and Justin Rose all out of the automatic places - and all absent at Gleneagles this week, choosing instead to contest the Barclays Championship in New Jersey for a chance of cracking the FedEx Cup, and the big bucks that tournament entails.
All of which means this week's European Tour event might just give Monty another reason for a sleepless night, should some of the better players put in a decent shift here. Miguel Ángel Jiménez was hoping to cement his place on the team at last week's Czech Open, and had originally planned to miss this week's Championship.
But lying in the last of the automatic places and vulnerable to a good run from other Ryder hopefuls, the Spaniard has opted to skip his nephew's wedding in order to play Gleneagles and compete for that place at Celtic Manor. Whether that willingness to fight for the cause can see Jiménez challenge for victory this week is a different matter, the 46-year-old having never played on this tricky Perth course before.
It's not just Jiménez whose place is at risk. While the first six places on the automatic qualifying list are safe, Jiménez along with Sweden's Peter Hanson in eighth place and Italy's Francesco Molinari in seventh could all conceivably lose their places, with Spain's Alvaro Quiros and England's Simon Dyson and Ross McGowan all theoretically capable of squeezing out the current three in the last automatic places.
Quiroz looks the pick of that bunch here, but he will need to win to qualify automatically - and with the player going on record that making the Ryder Cup was his chief aim this season, might his nerve fail him at the finish? As an each-way proposition, Quiroz makes more appeal.
Even if a place in the automatic positions can't be nailed, every one of the above players will be hoping to put in a good performance, if only to further muddle Montgomerie's mind about the indispensability of the so-called 'FedEx four' of Casey, Donald, Harrington and Rose (at least one of whom will be dispensed with, since four players into three wildcard picks just doesn't go).
While the Ryder Cup may be overshadowing this week's tournament, though, there's good reason to believe that one of the men who has already booked his place to Celtic Manor can put in another good showing here.
Ross Fisher, sixth on the table and guaranteed to make the team is the outright favourite for the event, and with a runner up finish at the BMW International Open and victory at the Irish Open earlier this year, he's got to be a real danger in Perthshire. On his last visit here two years ago he was tied for 10th place, and his length off the tee can certainly be a factor at Gleneagles' expansive fairways.
What better way for Fisher to underline his status as a Ryder Cup certainty than with another victory on the European Tour this week? That would make two for the year - two more than either Justin Rose, Padraig Harrington or Paul Casey has collected in Europe, incidentally (Donald has at least won once this year in Europe, at the Madrid Masters).
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