And if Daly, four clear of Australian Adam Scott overnight, achieves it then Sam Torrance will have to leave either Jesper Parnevik or Jose Maria Olazabal out of his side for The Belfry later this month - as well as 1999 Open champion Paul Lawrie.

Olazabal laid his credentials on the table for all to see yesterday, equalling the course record with a 10 under par 62 which contained the first albatross of his life.

But the Spaniard, for whom nothing short of victory will get him ahead of 10th-placed Phillip Price in the points table, is still five behind Daly - and he still believes that Parnevik is ahead of him in Torrance’s thoughts.

‘‘I still don’t think I have a chance of a wild card - I think I have to go out and win and that’s going to be difficult,’’ commented Olazabal.

‘‘I would love to make the team, but I’m not making too much of an issue of that. Playing well will cheer me up and that will be enough.

‘‘But I know what I have to do and this is the tournament to do it.’’

Daly may have gone more than six years without winning, but he was third in the Scottish Open on his last trip to Europe in July and in his opening two rounds of 63 and 64 in Germany he has had three eagles, 12 birdies and just one bogey.

‘‘I hope I can keep going,’’ said the 35-year-old, who is still ranked only 176th in the world, but had fallen outside the top 300 during the years of wasting his talent which saw him have two spells in alcohol rehabilitation centres and three broken marriages.

Having wed again five weeks ago - and won 680,000 dollars on Las Vegas slot machines while on honeymoon - he is enjoying life and golf.

Daly insists he spends many an hour hitting balls on the 130-yard area he has set aside at his home to practise his wedge play and he feels able to do so after taking himself off medication prescribed to combat depression.

Not that he felt he was suffering from it. ‘‘They made me feel like a rat,’’ he said.

‘‘But now I’m a totally different person and have so much more energy.’’

On previous trips abroad he admits his sole thought was on making the halfway cut so that the sponsors got a whole week of him for their appearance money.

‘‘I always worried about it, but this time I said to myself ‘forget it, try to win.’’’

Olazabal is lying joint third with two certain members of next month’s team, Padraig Harrington and defending champion Thomas Bjorn, and also Scott’s fellow Australian Richard Green.

If the double Masters champion fails to win, but goes close, most people will be left feeling that Europe will not be taking their strongest team into the match.

There has been controversy for ages about Europe not giving themselves the best possible chance of winning back the trophy by sticking to only two wild cards with so many of their stars playing more on the US Tour.

Nearly half the last team - Garcia, Parnevik, Olazabal, Miguel Angel Jimenez and Jean Van de Velde - divide their time between the two circuits and none is in the top 10 of the points race.

Garcia has already been guaranteed a wild card, but at 10 under and joint eighth at halfway in Munich the 21-year-old could still win and allow Torrance to choose both Parnevik and Olazabal rather than just one of them.

Two weeks ago Olazabal complained: ‘‘We (the players) started saying it was wrong a long time ago, but nobody listens. We are way down the bottom nobody listens.’’

He knows he could now become a victim of the system, but insisted: ‘‘I don’t regret going to America at all.

‘‘If I had played at the level I can play at then I would have made the team.’’

That, however, does not change the fact that on yesterday’s evidence - ‘‘a very special day,’’ he called it - he still clearly has the game that makes him one of Europe’s star performers.

So is Parnevik and it is only shooting yourself in the foot to have a qualifying procedure which could mean one of them missing out.