The top golfers in Europe will be searching for crucial Ryder Cup points during this year’s USPGA Championship that starts today. It is the final major of the year and presents one of the last opportunities for European players to force their way into Nick Faldo’s Ryder Cup team.

In total, eight Europeans will be competing at Oakland Hills this week. Lee Westwood, Padriag Harrington and Miguel Angel Jimenez will be looking to cement their place amongst the automatic qualifiers and Sergio Garcia, Paul Casey, Darren Clarke, Colin Montgomerie and Ian Poulter will be hoping to give themselves a chance of qualifying. The latter is aware that the next four days are ‘very important’ for his chances.

Englishman Ian Poulter – who is 20,000 points behind final qualifier Justin Rose, European points list – finished runner up to Padraig Harrington in The Open and 16th in the WGC Bridgestone event on Sunday to give himself a chance of playing in the Ryder Cup. He is aware that a convincing performance this week could see him climb the rankings or it could make sure that if he doesn’t qualify, he will be a front runner for one of Nick Faldo’s wildcard picks.

Looking more specifically at the USPGA Championship, without reference to the Ryder Cup, it looks rather bleak for any European golfer. That’s because no-one from Europe has won this event since Scotsman Tommy Armour in 1930. Despite this, I am tempted to stick some of my golf betting money on a European achieving the feat.

Lee Westwood is my man again this time. He is having an excellent time at the moment and is arguably playing the best golf of his life. He partners Geoff Ogilvy and Zach Johnson and goes into the USPGA event in good spirits after finishing runner up to Vijay Singh at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational. With the likes of Phil Mickelson in the field though, Lee Westwood has his work cut out if he is to win it.

The majority of Europe’s focus will be on securing a Ryder Cup place with a decent performance in this USPGA. However, if any European golfer is going to win it – it will be Lee Westwood. I’ll be reviewing the tournament next week.