It was just after 10.15 on Tuesday night that Paul McGinley took his place between Thomas Bjorn and Tour chief executive George O’Grady in the Regal Ballroom with the little gold Ryder Cup trophy on the table.

By the time he saw his bed, it was just shy of five o’clock in the morning. American TV schedules decreed he was answering calls and doing pieces to camera right through the night. A small tariff, readily paid.

With the settling of the dust came the what-ifs. McGinley knows his life is going to change now. His phone will buzz and ping at times of the day and night that won’t suit him, he’ll cover more miles and make nice at more setpiece events than he has ever had to before this.

Playing golf will be an afterthought, if it’s a thought at all. There will surely be times when he wonders what he’s gotten himself into. So in the feverish build-up to Tuesday night’s vote when it looked for a while like things might not go his way, he must have prepared for the worst. “Yes I did,” he says. “I had notes in my pocket about how I was going to project myself and what I was going to do. I had prepared for both eventualities and fortunately I’m speaking from the right side of the fence. I assured George and Richard [Hills, Ryder Cup director] that I would act with integrity expected by the tour.

“If it wasn’t going to be despite the players’ support, I would wish the winner the best of luck and leave it at that knowing that it was probably my last opportunity. I don’t think I was going to be captain in two years’ time. It would have been sore but I have so many irons in the fire. I’ve got six different sponsors and they had all renewed before the decision was made, irrespective of what that was. That means a lot to me.”

Deliberation

From here on each day will be one of deliberation for McGinley. On what sort of captain he will be in September of next year, on where and when and how he will organise the announcement of his team. On who will be by his side – we can take it that a Scottish vice-captain is a given but beyond that nothing is certain.

One thing he might tweak is the qualifying process and the order in which players are picked. As it stands, it’s the top five in the European points list followed by the top five in the World equivalent.

With so many of his players based in the US now, McGinley is open to the idea of flipping them around. “I’m going to have to sit down and look at that.

“The goalposts have changed a little bit as we’ve not got more players on the PGA Tour than it was for the last two captains. I will do all my stats on the players, look back on the last two years and see where we are as my objective is to have the best 12 players for the European team, though at the same time taking into account players showing loyalty to the European Tour.

“When Edoardo Molinari had a good year on the European Tour in 2010, he was able to make the team and it is very important to me that fresh blood have the opportunity of making the team for Gleneagles. I’d be happy to take the 12 players from Medinah and go out again but I would also love to see other guys having a fair opportunity.”

He said he bore no ill will to Colin Montgomerie, even though the 2010 captain got into the race after saying he wasn’t interested. “I was surprised,” says McGinley.

“He said quite clearly that he was not going to go again. Having said that he was totally within his rights to change his mind. I had no problem with it. He said some really nice things to me in the corridor when the decision was made. I know he will be very supportive of me and the European team.”

Clarke calls for full support for McGinley Darren aiming to make team for Gleneagles

For Darren Clarke, the in-one-minute-out-another nature of the last two months has been wearing. In the end, he took himself out of consideration for the Ryder Cup captaincy role and although it's a reasonably open secret that he wasn't a supporter of McGinley's candidacy on Tuesday night, he has 20 months to play his way on to the team.

"I just hope we can put everything behind us," he said yesterday, "because the important thing is that we all get behind Paul as captain and give him as much support as we can. For me the focus is trying to play my way onto the team. That is why I announced I didn't want to be considered for the captaincy this time – I want to play, and do my bit at Gleneagles."

Possibly the lowest point in the year or so that McGinley was going for the captaincy was shortly after last year's Ryder Cup when the Daily Mail carried a piece saying Clarke had been offered the job.

Coming just 12 months after Clarke had assured McGinley of his full support in a hand-written letter, it caused McGinley some discomfort. Yet he stayed true to his way of not getting in a twist about it until he knew for sure what was going on.

"I was surprised," McGinley says. "But I knew it wasn't true. I'm on that committee and no-one had contacted me. The last captain when Ollie was put into place, it was quite clear it was going to be Ollie but Thomas still had to call every person on that committee to get their authority before he could release the news. I had not received a phone call so I knew it wasn't the case."

Despite having twice been a vice-captain already, it is far from certain Clarke will be invited to reprise the role under McGinley. He is, however, the front-runner for the 2016 job.

MALACHY CLERKIN