United States Ryder Cup captain Paul Azinger will ask his players who they would rather not play with in September's showdown with Europe.
Azinger admits he once did not want to play with a certain team-mate and will try to avoid any similar personality clashes at Valhalla in Kentucky.
"My first question is, is there anyone on the team you just don't want to play with?" Azinger said on the eve of the Memorial tournament at Muirfield Village.
"There was one Ryder Cup team I played on where there was one guy I just didn't really want to play with. I think that's just human nature. You might have had a run-in with that guy."
Azinger, who did not name the team-mate in question, also made several other revelations during a lengthy press conference, including:
: He will use a captain's pick to select anyone who wins on the PGA Tour in the month before the team is finalised.
: He plans, on the advice of Jack Nicklaus, to take a somewhat hands-off approach to his players.
: He hopes to have the course set up to favour the American team.
: He wants Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson to assume leadership roles.
After five defeats in the past six Ryder Cups, Azinger has persuaded the PGA of America to make two significant changes to how the American team is selected.
Not only will the captain have four captain's picks, double the previous number, but he will not have to name them until early September, three weeks later than usual, and only two weeks before the Ryder Cup.
"Anyone who wins a tournament (after the USPGA) is probably going to get on," Azinger added. "Anybody who wins after the PGA is probably going to be pretty confident three weeks later.
"The great intangible, the thing you look for out here as a player and hope to attain, is confidence. Everybody can play but the guys that are the most confident play the best.
"If a guy wins three weeks in a row on the (secondary) Nationwide Tour, and I'm picking the next week, I would be an idiot not to pick that guy. He's just won three weeks in a row on a really hard tour. How could I not pick that guy?"
Azinger also promised not to micro-manage his players.
"I'm dealing with the 12 best professional (American) golfers in the world," he continued.
"If I go in there thinking I've got to hold hands, what chance do we have? I'm not holding any hands. They're all big boys."
As for the course set-up, he has not quite figured out how exactly it can favour his team, but should have more of an idea once the side if finalised.
"I don't know how to get an advantage at this point (but) it would be irresponsible of me not to try to find a way to gain some sort of an edge, if that's possible. If I can find it, I'll try to get it."
Azinger was speaking on the eve of the Jack Nicklaus-hosted Memorial, one of the premier events on the PGA Tour.
This year's event will lack Tiger Woods, who continues his rehabilitation from knee surgery, as well as Adam Scott, who has been under the weather lately, but nearly all of the other big names are present, headed by world number two Phil Mickelson, fresh from Sunday's victory at Colonial.
KJ Choi is defending champion but he has been out of form recently, missing the cut in his past two starts.
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