European captain Paul McGinley has urged Scotland's golfing tartan army to try and grab a spot in his team for the 2014 Ryder Cup at Gleneagles.

Dubliner McGinley was at the Perthshire resort yesterday for the first time since being handed the skipper's armband six weeks ago.

He has always maintained he wants a strong Scottish presence for the biennial bout with the USA and has challenged the home hopefuls to fly the flag.

Paul Lawrie, part of last year's winning team at Medinah, Richie Ramsay, Stephen Gallacher and Scott Jamieson are currently in the top-70 of the world rankings.

And McGinley, who holed the winning putt in the 2002 clash at The Belfry, is hoping the Scots quartet can make a push for European selection when qualifying begins later this year.

He said: "I would love nothing more than to have at least one Scot in the team.

"When we played in Ireland in 2006, a quarter of the team were Irish so that's the challenge now for the Scottish, to get 25% of the team from the home country."

McGinley added he won't be naming his four vice-captains until the summer of 2014, but the popular Irishman has already found himself consumed by the job.

Despite three successful Cup campaigns as a player and two as a trusted vice-captain, McGinley admitted his new role has been something of an eye-opener.

He said: "I think my life has changed already.

"Every night I go to bed thinking about the Ryder Cup and every morning I wake up and I'm still thinking about it.

"There is no doubt my profile and the level of interest that people have in me has escalated quite significantly.

"That's all part of the job, I understood that was going to happen, but it has still taken me aback how grand the scale of it is.

"Someone said more than 500 million people watched the press conference when I was announced as captain. If that wasn't a wake-up call, I don't think anything will be."