Howell - Rose can flourish

Rose: Debutant

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Justin Rose's confidence is such that he is capable of belying his Ryder Cup rookie status and hitting the opening tee shot for Europe against the United States in Kentucky on Friday.

That's the view of David Howell, who told Sky Sports 1 that experience the 28-year-old has accrued would prevent any jitters were he to be selected by captain Nick Faldo for Friday morning's foursomes at Valhalla.

"His career has always been getting to the point where he was going to be a Ryder Cup player at some stage. He's going to have some nerves but he's not going to be overawed by the situation," said Howell, a member of Europe's Ryder Cup-winning team in 2004 and 2006.

"Normally you wouldn't think about putting a rookie in foursomes on the first morning but with Justin you feel he could hit the first shot and not be overawed by the situation.

"I'd expect to see him play on Friday morning."

Guessing game

Both sides played their first practice rounds on Tuesday, with Rose playing alongside Miguel Angel Jimenez and fellow rookie Oliver Wilson as Faldo elected to field threes rather than the more usual fours.

The rounds gave the chance to do some guessing on pairings for the match, with Rose and Wilson having already played together - albeit losing - in last year's Seve Trophy.

Lee Westwood and Sergio Garcia were together, as they were in 2002 and 2004, while Robert Karlsson joined Paul Casey in a repeat of their 2006 partnership.

Open and USPGA champion Padraig Harrington, meanwhile, played alongside Henrik Stenson and rookie Graeme McDowell.

Meanwhile, Paul Azinger's most experienced team member, Phil Mickelson, was paired with rookies Anthony Kim and Hunter Mahan and also Justin Leonard.

The up-and-coming Kim, a fellow Californian and twice a winner this year, is being mentioned as Mickelson's possible partner.

Of that possibility, Howell said: "You've got the most experienced player there in Phil and the new rising star of the Tour in Anthony Kim. They're both aggressive players.

"They've got six rookies in their side so some of those rookies are going to have to stand up there on Friday morning in foursomes and play and I wouldn't be surprised if Kim was one of those."

Faith

As the United States attempt to win the Cup back for the first time since 1999, Azinger said that he had faith in his debutants, going so far as to add that he could even pair some of them.

"I wouldn't have any trouble putting rookie and rookie together," he said. "Sometimes I think it's more difficult to go out with an experienced player.

"I think sometimes the rookie feels like he has something to prove to that guy. I don't want anybody to feel that way."

Azinger added that he did not even consider first-timers such as 41-year-old Steve Stricker and 2003 Open champion Ben Curtis as rookies.

"When you talk about rookies - Steve Stricker, Ben Curtis, Anthony Kim - these guys all know that they're equally as good as the guys who have played Ryder Cup before," he said.

"I like the idea of putting rookies together too. I like the team, I make the make-up of the team.

"It worked out that we have six rookies and six veteran players, but I think our rookies are all gamers."