Sky Sports.com

Golf Night
Thursday to Sunday
Every week on Sky Sports

Corey Pavin has told Golf Night of his ambition to captain the US Ryder Cup team.

The 1985 US Open champion was vice-captain of the American team beaten by a record margin by Europe at the K Club in 2006 but hasn't lost his love for the competition, saying he would be honoured to lead his country against Europe, perhaps in 2010.

"I would love to be Ryder Cup captain," he said. "We will see if it is in the cards. The PGA of America makes that decision and Paul (Azinger) is the next captain, hopefully I will be captain the next time. It is up to them and if they are watching, I would certainly be honoured to do so.

"The PGA of America is pretty tight with what they are thinking and they need to be, they don't want to have too many people guessing, but all I can say is I hope am, I would like to be... It is my favourite competition in the world."

"I love the Ryder Cup. It is fun, it is match play, it is as high drama as you can get. I have never been as nervous as I have been in a Ryder Cup, it is just fantastic stuff."

Pavin will have learned from his experience as vice-captain to Tom Lehman in Ireland but he says that there is only so much that the skipper can do in team golf, and even despite the record defeat, he wouldn't change the way he went about his business at the K Club.

"The result was awful," he says, before joking, "I am sure you hated it!

"It is interesting because I have talked with Tom and I don't think we would do much differently. The bottom line is the European team played much better and they won. I think the captain has an influence, definitely, but you can just put the pairings together and do the best you can.

"The guys do have to play, you can't control that and once they are out there, you just hope they play well. The European team was very strong, from one through 12 this last time, and I was pretty impressed with the way they played.

"They holed a lot of putts, hit a lot of great shots and did everything they needed to do to win the matches. That is just what we need to do right back and it is a shame. I would like to see them close."

Pavin played in three Ryder Cups, including the famous "War on the Shore" when the Americans won at Kiawah Island in 1991, and is known for his tenacity, something he hopes will rub off on his players and the American golfing public as captain, should he ever receive the call.

He said: "I certainly feel an urgency to win. The results the last seven or eight Ryder Cups, I haven't been very fond of but it is just a matter of the guys playing well.

"We just need to have some young guys come up and play well, assert themselves. We need to have some new blood in there. It is tough when you have Tiger (Woods) winning most of the tournaments over there, and Phil (Mickelson), but we need to get some guys winning tournaments over there and developing some confidence that they can go into the Ryder Cup and win their matches.

"I sure hope the American golfing public wants us to get back on top. I haven't queried every American but I would suspect they would like to see the Cup come back to the US."

Some said Pavin's enthusiasm went too far at Kiawah Island when he was at the heart of the American team that wore combat-fatigue style camouflaged caps but Pavin says the public perception of that statement is wrong.

He said: "It is funny, there is a big misinterpretation of what kind of statement we were making by wearing that. It was for supporting the troops in Iraq and I think people took it as the war was on the golf course, and I think it was totally misunderstood.

"I apologise I offended anybody, but that was all that was about."