McGinley - ready for action. (Getty Images)

Paul McGinley has simply been itching to get back into major championship action for the best part of a year. Now the chance has come.

The last one the Dubliner played was the US PGA at Whistling Straits last August and in one of the performances of his life he was the leading European in joint sixth place.

It was no distant sixth either. McGinley played 282 strokes that week and if he could have avoided just two of them he would have been in the play-off which saw Vijay Singh defeat Justin Leonard and Chris DiMarco.

Never having finished higher than 14th in any of his 19 previous majors it was a significant leap - and all the more impressive because he just had three weeks left to rescue his Ryder Cup place.

Europe's match-winner in 2002 went on to be an unbeaten member of the side that smashed the Americans in Detroit, but after that it was back to the business of improving a world ranking which entering this season stood at 68th.

Like Colin Montgomerie, it meant travelling the globe - "going to places I don't particularly want to go to," he said - and like the Scot he could not make the top 50 in time for the Masters in April.

But then came the BMW Championship at Wentworth. Montgomerie came 11th to squeeze into 50th spot and McGinley so nearly ended four years without a victory.

The 38-year-old's main thoughts afterwards were understandably on the two late bogeys which let in Angel Cabrera and also on Darren Clarke's wife Heather, whose cancer had forced the Ulsterman to pull out of the event and will also mean he is absent from Pinehurst.

Padraig Harrington, the other Irish member of last year's Ryder Cup team, really wanted McGinley to win - once he knew he could not himself, of course.

"It's hard to win, but Paul should be regularly competing for titles and this will give him the confidence to believe he is as good as he is," said Harrington, who knows all about runners-up finishes with 26 to his name.

"Paul's a fine player. His golf game is right up there. He should be in all these (major) tournaments."

This time McGinley is. And even if he has missed the halfway cut in his two previous US Opens in 1997 and 2002 he can draw strength not only from Whistling Straits, but also his only Masters appearance three years ago.

"I finished 18th and was one shot away from earning myself a return. I holed a 10-footer on the last and was sure it was going to get me in, but it didn't and it's disappointing I've not had another chance.

"I know I could do even better. It really hurt not being there this year. I didn't even watch it - it hurt that much."