'Made in America' Laird targets Cup spot for 2012
His golfing career has been 'Made in America' but Britain's Martin Laird is now eyeing a spot on the 2012 European Ryder Cup team after soaring up the world rankings this year.
A resident of Scottsdale, Arizona, who graduated from Colorado State University, the 28-year-old Scot has been living and playing in the United States for the last decade.
However, he said his lengthy spell away from home soil did not affect his ambitions of taking on the Americans at the next Ryder Cup.
"It's on my mind constantly," Laird told reporters after grabbing a one-shot lead in the Arnold Palmer Invitational second round on Friday.
"It would be one of the biggest, if not the biggest, goals and achievements for me in my career. Just because I've been over here, started college here in 2000, doesn't mean I don't think of myself as Scottish and European.
"To make that team would mean everything to me. Next year I'm going to do everything I can to get on that team," he said with an accent that highlighted his move from Glasgow's suburbs to the States.
Laird is rarely mentioned among the wave of British golfers riding high at the top of the game but he is 40th in the world and has just notched a top-10 finish at the WGC-Cadillac Championship in Doral and a tie for fifth at last week's Transitions Championship in Tampa.
That form, which makes him the 16th-highest European in the world rankings, means talk of Laird being on the next European Cup team no longer sounds like mere speculation.
ON THE RADAR
"Especially the way my game's improved the last four to six months, it's gone from being kind of an outside thought to now it's definitely on the radar. Hopefully I can play well enough when it matters," he said.
If Laird does get the chance to take on the Americans at Medinah Country Club on the outskirts of Chicago, it will be with a game that was forged in the US world of NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) college golf.
"I was 17 years old when I came over (to the US) and I wasn't really very good," he said.
"By the time I graduated, I definitely had improved a lot, just playing competitive golf almost all year round, and having really good practice facilities and a good coach helped me get a lot better over my four years.
"I used to hit the ball really low and now I probably have one of the higher ball flights on tour. That's something that definitely benefits you when you play over here. Probably if I had stayed in Europe, that wouldn't be the case."
Another change to Laird's game came much earlier -- when circumstances dictated he switch from left hand to right.
"My first-ever club when I was a tiny little kid was a little left-handed thing," he recalled. "Any photos my parents have of me as a little kid, before I really knew what golf was, I'm standing to the ball left-handed.
"But when it got time for me to actually play a little golf, my Dad couldn't get any left-handed clubs, so he got me some right-handed ones and that was it.
"I joke with him saying: 'I wonder how good I could have been if I was left-handed?'"