European Tour news: The countdown is on, with only four weeks (and five tournaments) left in the race to earn a place on Europe's team for the Ryder Cup at The K Club. And Paul McGinley, currently in the 10th and last automatic place on Ian Woosnam's team, has - like his nearest pursuer, Paul Broadhurst - decided it would be too high a risk to take not to play in this week's KLM Dutch Open at Kennemer, a course with strong links characteristics.
As far as securing Ryder Cup qualification is concerned, McGinley is better placed this time round than he was two years ago. On that occasion, McGinley kick-started his final charge for a place on the team in Detroit with a runner-up finish in the Dutch Open, which was followed by a sixth-place finish in the US PGA and another top-10 finish in the BMW International.
McGinley has a gap of 119,087 over Broadhurst in the Ryder Cup European points list, and will be looking to consolidate that position in the Dutch Open (which he has added on to his schedule), where he heads a seven-strong contingent of Irish players that also includes Peter Lawrie, Damien McGrane, Gary Murphy, Michael Hoey, David Higgins and Stephen Browne. There is a top prize of €266,660 available at the tournament.
Although McGinley and Broadhurst missed out on last week's Scandinavian Masters, events in Sweden only barely affected the points list. Robert Karlsson's runner-up finish moved him into a stronger qualifying position, but Johan Edfors's missed cut (the Swede is not playing in the Netherlands) was a more significant factor as far as McGinley was concerned, as, despite taking a week off, he still maintained his points cushion.
The Dutch Open is one of five tournaments left before Europe's team is confirmed. Next week's US PGA and the conflicting Russian Open are followed by the Bridgestone Invitational in Akron and, then, the BMW International in Munich, the final counting tournament. Woosnam will nominate his two wild-card choices after the BMW, while opposing captain Tom Lehman will name his two captain's picks following the US PGA in Medinah next week.
With only two tournaments remaining in the US qualifying system, Vaughn Taylor's good performance at the Buick Open moved him from 11th to seventh, and virtually assured of a rookie Ryder Cup appearance. This week's International in Denver and next week's US PGA conclude the US qualification.
Despite languishing in 33rd position in the European Ryder Cup points list, Graeme McDowell has decided not to play in the Dutch Open and will reappear for next week's US PGA. The week before the British Open, McDowell had slipped to 103rd in the world rankings but has since climbed back to 85th and heads to Medinah for what will be his third successive US PGA appearance claiming, "my game's there, but I've been too inconsistent and I've also made mistakes from a scheduling point of view. I won't be doing that again because playing 15 out of 17 events (which he did up to the TPC of Europe) is just not conducive to good golf on the weekends". He added: "My golf has just been abandoning me at the weekends and it showed at the US Open and British Open because I was very tired."
While McDowell is looking forward to a rare second successive week away from competition, one Irishman glad to be playing this week is Michael McGeady, whose runner-up finish in the Ireland Ryder Cup Challenge in Killarney earned him a place in this week's Vodafone Challenge in Dusseldorf. Brian McElhinney is also in the field.
