RYDER Cup debutant Jamie Donaldson is more concerned about his table tennis form against fellow team-mates than he is about tackling the Gleneagles course.

The 38-year-old rookie secured his place on Paul McGinley's team by winning the Czech Masters in August and has subsequently had two other top-10 finishes on the European Tour.

However, arriving in Scotland on Monday he discovered European competitiveness was not reserved solely for the United States.

"I played table tennis last night with Thomas Bjorn, who had a jumper on and I had a tee shirt on, and I was dripping with sweat and he didn't have any sweat on him at all and he battered me 3-0," said the first Welshman to play in the Ryder Cup since Phillip Price 12 years ago.

"He was winding me up all morning and I'll be looking to playing him tonight.

"Talking to Sergio (Garcia) he was going 'Who? Thomas? Beat you 3-0?' Apparently Sergio is very good. There's a few good players.

"It's amazing how and I've never played with a golfer yet who is not very good at table tennis.

"You can play pool and some people are literally useless but everybody seems to play table tennis pretty well, which is quite mad.

"I'll be trying to get my revenge this evening, (I'll) have to change my strategy on the table tennis."

That appears to be Donaldson's primary concern as he is confident the golf will look after itself following an impressive two years in which he recorded three victories.

"I suppose you've got to conserve energy as much as you can - not playing too much table tennis! - and not get too involved or drifting away, but at the same time enjoy the experience," he added.

"I don't know if it's not quite sunk in but I think because things have taken so long for me to get to this position, everything seems to slip more into my stride than maybe if I was 25 as opposed to 38.

"I don't get so wowed as I might have done if I was younger.

"All the surroundings change but the game still stays the same, so all I try to think about is my game, just like I would do every other week. The game's been good of late."