GOLF: NEW RYDER Cup captain Jose Maria Olazabal has been given what he wanted for next year's defence of the trophy in Chicago – only two wild cards and a change to the qualifying system.
Colin Montgomerie asked for three wild cards for Celtic Manor last October, but still faced a situation where he had to choose between Pádraig Harrington, Luke Donald, Paul Casey, Justin Rose and Edoardo Molinari. Casey and Rose missed out despite the former being the world number nine at the time and the latter having won twice in America.
Olazabal believes that by selecting five players off a European Tour money list first and then going to a world ranking points list for the next five – for Montgomerie it was the other way round and only four from the world list – the chances of the best players qualifying automatically will be enhanced.
“I am very pleased that the tournament committee has agreed to my request,” said Olazabal. “The only reason that I asked for a change in the criteria is because I believe that it will give me the strongest team possible to defend the Ryder Cup.
“I looked over the last few qualification processes, going back to 2004, and was satisfied that my proposal would give me the strongest team on paper. We are going to have a very strong team, but I just felt that this would give the team the best chance to keep the Ryder Cup and that is what we all want.
“At the end of the day, it is the players who are the stars and it is the players who hit the shots and win the points to win the Ryder Cup. I would like to thank the committee for their support and I hope that this is the first step to us retaining the Ryder Cup in 2012.”
Qualifying starts in September and runs through to the end of August next year.
Olazabal could still face the same problem that Montgomerie did in the final week, however.
The PGA Tour event that week does not count for cup qualifying, but Harrington, Casey, Donald and Rose all still opted for a FedEx Cup play-off tournament last year instead of the Johnnie Walker Championship at Gleneagles.
Elsewhere, Tiger Woods will discover just how far his game has slipped when he joins Lee Westwood and Martin Kaymer in a mouth-watering matching of golf’s top-ranked three players in the Dubai Desert Classic starting tomorrow.
Woods was overtaken by England’s Westwood at the end of last year and then the mercurial 26-year-old German Kaymer, the US PGA champion, in January at the summit of the world rankings.
Dubai marks Woods’ second tournament of the year and his suspect technique will be right back under the microscope after he finished 44th last week in the Farmers Insurance Open after closing rounds of 74 and 75.
Westwood, for one, cannot wait for the chance to go head to head against a man who had dominated the sport virtually unchallenged since the late 1990s until his fall from grace last year, picking up 14 Majors along the way.
Woods has won the Desert Classic twice, in 2006 and 2008.
It is the first time in 17 years that the world’s top-three ranked golfers have competed in a regular European Tour tournament.
“It’s a fantastic draw for the tournament and for the people watching,” Westwood told reporters yesterday as he looked forward to tomorrow’s midday three-ball.
“That’s what people like to see. Certainly at other events where you draw the three main champions together – in the PGA Championship – that’s always exciting,” added Westwood.
Mohamed Juma Buamain, vice-chairman and CEO of Golf in Dubai, said ticket sales were up 30 per cent compared to last year when Woods elected not to compete in Dubai following the turmoil that overtook his private life.
