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Qualifying for the doesn't start until next week but captain has already written down the 12 names most likely to make up his side at Celtic Manor.

Of course, they are only written in pencil at the moment and the piece of paper has been tucked away for safe keeping.

And Monty is as intrigued as anyone as to what the make up of his team will be and is more than happy to join the guessing game about to be played by so many European golf fans.

Naturally he is keeping his thoughts to himself, but it is fascinating to think that he has already identified a "dream-team" dozen that he'd like for Europe's quest to wrest back the trophy from the United States.

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Mess with history at your peril. That is the message after a that surpassed expectations despite ending in the widely predicted result.

Beth Daniel's US team were overwhelming favourites and ultimately justified the tag with a 16-12 victory, but their European opponents played a full part in providing the women's game with a much needed boost.

For the Solheim Cup to survive and for the matches to be genuine contests, Europe would need to expand to a Rest of the World team in the future, so it was said in many quarters ahead of the clash at Rich Harvest Farms in Illinois.

But such claims were well and truly bunkered, indeed plugged under the lip, by the inspired effort of the European side led by .

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"It had to happen some time," was the phrase that paid after the final major of 2009 because it could be attached to whichever of the outcomes one felt was the more significant.

As what was the bigger question? Was it that an Asian born man had at last won a major, or was it that Woods had at last surrendered a final day lead?

Which is more significant, or the news that Woods' game is susceptible to final day pressure?

It's hard to know and in all honesty it is difficult to predict what will be the fallout from this extraordinary .

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It may be but much of the talk after the first round of the USPGA has been about the shortest shots.

That's particularly the case with , who was trying a new technique without much success as he began his quest for a second victory in the final major of the golfing year.

"Putter was nice to me today," he said with a voice dripping with sarcasm after a round of 74 that included a miserable 34 blows with the short stick.

"I had a terrible day putting, just terrible. I haven't putted this bad in a long time. You cannot win golf tournaments putting like that."

And with that he was off to the practice green to put right a technique that let him down so badly.

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It was the first day of the final major of the year and even though the great Tiger Woods and defending champ Padraig Harrington were out early, thoughts seemed to be bypassing Hazeltine and drifting into the distance.

All the way to 2016 given that the in golf's attempt to return to the Olympics.

As Ty Votaw, the man fronting the Olympic bid, addressed the media in the wake of the news from Berlin, it was hard not to recall the words of Jeev Milkha Singh earlier this year.

"Golf not being an Olympic sport we are not getting any funding from our government," India's leading golfer had said. "Hopefully in October it becomes an Olympic sport.

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Hazeltine, Minnesota

Rarely does Tiger Woods embroil himself in controversy, especially in the week of a major, but this is not the case ahead of the US PGA at Hazeltine.

Woods for putting the world number one and Padraig Harrington on the clock for slow play late in the final round of the .

It had been erroneously reported that Woods had been fined for his comments in the wake of his four-shot victory over the Irishman. "There was no fine," he told reporters here at the venue of the last major of the year.

But officials may be tempted to examine the 33-year-old's latest comments on the incident which occurred on the par 5 16th hole in Ohio. They came in his pre-Championship news conference where he renewed his criticism of Europe's leading golf referee.

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