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After Paul McGinley led Europe to a superb 16½-11½ victory over the USA in this year’s competition at Gleneagles, attention has already turned to who will lead the team in America in two years’ time.
Clarke was vice-captain at Medinah two years ago and is the most popular choice for the role, but Montgomerie – who was a pundit for Sky Sports during this year’s tournament – says the Northern-Irishman has to be sure he will not want to feature as a player.
“I think he’s the bookies’ favourite, if there is one,” the 2010 captain told Sky Sports News. “Provided he feels he isn’t capable of playing and adding to the team in a playing performance.
“This is the problem with Thomas Bjorn, with Lee Westwood, with Padraig Harrington as well – are they ready to say they’re not going to play again? Because after you’ve captained it’s very rare to come back as a player.
“Darren’s favourite right now but we will have a think after the next few months and come up with the best candidate.”
The Scot will choose the captain for Hazeltine in 2016 along with McGinley and fellow former captain Jose Maria Olazabal – something he believes is a good system.
“There’s a number of great candidates we have in Europe,” he added. “There’s Lee Westwood, Thomas Bjorn, Padraig Harrington, Darren Clarke, Miguel Angel Jimenez. There’s a load of candidates we have and we’ll discuss it.
“The last three Ryder Cup captains select this now, which I do like. It saves the social media playing it out beforehand and I think it’s very good that Paul McGinley, Jose Maria Olazabal and myself will select the captain and then it will be announced. It’s as simple as that.
“We will analyse it, we will think about it, we will talk between ourselves and we will come up with the best candidate for the job in two years’ time.”
