They may not have got the result they wanted at this week’s junior pre-cursor to the main event but José María Olazábal did his best to make up for that loss when he stopped by for a quick chat with Europe’s next generation.

As Junior Team Europe warmed up on the range ahead of their afternoon Friendship Match on Medinah’s No. 3 Course, Captain Olazábal called in to meet the potential future stars of The Ryder Cup and offer some words of wisdom.

Fitting sentiment from the Spaniard when you consider that Sergio Garcia (1995), Rory McIlroy (2004) and 2012 rookie Nicolas Colsaerts (1997, 1999) have all represented Europe in this event before graduating to the senior side.

The European Team will hope for better fortunes than their junior equivalent, though, after they fell to a closely-fought 14.5 – 9.5 defeat at Olympia Fields earlier this week.

They will take great heart from this Medinah experience though and it promises to be a timely apprenticeship for what is a group of promising young talent.

Only time will tell which of them we’ll be cheering on in Ryder Cups to come.