Ryder Cup 2012: Americans believe Davis Love is the captain who can break Europe's stranglehold In contrast, that week in Kentucky witnessed Paul Azinger scything through all the ceremonial nonsense which accompanies America's captaincy and came up with a clear and coherent game-plan which focused on what made the players tick. There are rumours that Love will follow the Azinger blueprint after it was so bizarrely ignored by Corey Pavin at Celtic Manor. It involves splitting the dozen into groups of four and then entrusting three assistants to ensure these quartets eat with each other, socialise with each other and play with each other. Azinger recognised the previous US teams has been spooked by representing the mammon that is America, encapsulated in one over-promoted figure-head. Just as the Europe team has natural cliques formed largely out of nationalities, Azinger created his own, formed by personalities. They were not asked to play for Azinger or the flag - but for each other. It worked. And it could work again. Has Love either the inclination or the sense to follow's Azinger's lead? If he does, America have an outstanding chance. Yet the suspicion is that Love will descend back into the old trough of treacle and come Sunday evening will be announcing how proud he is of his losing team. His pairings won't work like those of Europe, because they won't be as tried, trusted and hence as obvious. Get past Woods -Stricker and then come up with another formidable US duo. Meanwhile, McIlroy-McDowell, Donald-Garcia, Poulter-Rose, Westwood-Anyone trip off the tongue so easily. Ryder Cup captaincy counts; it simply has to. The teams are so well-matched that this will be won in the margins. It doesn't matter if Love has ordered the mowers to remove the rough, or that at 7,648 yards Medinah is a bomber's paradise. Like every other Ryder Cup it will come down to putting. This is when the freedom to play comes into it, when the fear to win and the courage to fail flash up their imponderables. This is when Europe will grab the moment. And then Olazábal will be hailed and then the spirit of Seve will be evoked in emotion and tears. Up and until then the Spaniard will treat it as a competition between two sets of professionals. Sure, he will use the Ballesteros connection as a motivational aid but it will remain essentially about them and what they can and cannot control. As Colin Montgomerie so eloquently explains on this page, Rory McIlroy will inevitably come in for special attention. Olazábal is not stupid, however, and will not allow a 23-year-old to become the embodiment of the team or its ambitions. In the likes of Lee Westwood, Luke Donald and Ian Poulter he has a core which can share the burden without fuss or much risk. America can't boast the same. While eight members of the away side have winning Ryder Cup percentages, not one in the American side can claim to have won more individual matches than he has lost. The anomaly is written right there in that absurd stat. As will be the result in Chicago.