Darren Clarke has a secret weapon

Darren Clarke has a secret weapon. He is bringing a team of six data specialists with him to the United States.

"We have a big database with lots of information from past Ryder Cups but also how well the Europeans have performed in the last 12 months so we can get a sense of the strengths and weaknesses in different aspects of their game," Blake Wooster, chief executive of UK data analysis company 15th Club, told CNN.

"Our data enables you to dig a lot deeper, so we'll go away and crunch those numbers to give Darren the information he needs to make decisions."

Clarke is rightly insisting that winning the last three Ryder Cups is irrelevant as his side embark on their bid to win an unprecedented four in a row.

"I think it's irrelevant going into this week. Each Ryder Cup is individual in its own rights, " he said.

"We have had different scenarios going on in past Ryder Cups and this is a totally different one where we're currently under the shadow of Mr Palmer's passing away.

"We will pay our respects but come Friday we will be out there battling like the two great teams that we are.

"What I was going to say to the players I'm still going to say to the players but obviously with this passing of the King it's a slightly different perspective on the whole thing now.

"Whatever happens this week it will be another great chapter in the history of the Ryder Cup."

Clarke is also very much of the opinion that something which is not broken does not need to be fixed.

"I've been doing it the same way as the European Tour keep on doing it," he added.

"Obviously our system has been reasonably successful of late so consequently that would be very foolish of me to try to make any changes to that system.

"The Tour run a very tight ship. They know exactly what happens.

"We didn't have a task force as such. We just keep doing the way that we've been doing it in Europe.

"We've been very fortunate that it's been a formula that seems to be very successful."

It will be very interesting to see how all this data actually plays out in terms of DC's decision making. 

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