Luke Donald calls for Ryder Cup qualification shake-up
With two of his highest-rated countrymen fallen by the wayside, England's Luke Donald might have considered himself fortunate just to have made it onto the European Ryder Cup team on Sunday.
But Donald isn't entirely satisfied with a qualification process that has seen some of Europe's finest golfers left out in the cold.
While Donald was pleased to have made the team, he was less enamoured with a system that enables lesser players to flourish at the expense of their supposedly disloyal rivals.
"The European Tour has to look harder at the system," Donald told reporters, adding: "I understand they want to protect the European Tour but at the same time the top guys are going to want to play against the best players in the world and you shouldn't be penalised for that."
Donald himself had failed to qualify for the Ryder Cup line-up through automatic qualification; along with Ireland's Padraig Harrington and Italy's Edoardo Molinari, the 32-year-old had to rely on a wildcard pick for the event from captain Colin Montgomerie.
That selection meant that Paul Casey and Justin Rose were off the team. But with Casey ranked eighth in the world, and Rose having won twice this year on the PGA Tour, few golf fans could seriously claim Spain's Miguel Ángel Jiménez (ranked 38th in the world) or Sweden's Peter Hanson (40th), each of whom qualified automatically, were superior choices.
Many will have little sympathy for Casey and Rose, suggesting that if either man had really wanted to play at Celtic Manor in October they would have sacrificed the greater monetary reward of the PGA tour to compete at European events (the same could equally be said of Donald and Harrington, of course).
But given the choice between duty to one's country and one's bank account, it's regrettable but hardly a revelation that players tend to put personal interests first. That focus on the big bucks is unlikely to change - so in the interests of winning, wouldn't it make sense to instigate a Ryder Cup qualification system that arrives at the strongest available line-up, regardless of where players ply their trade?
That's certainly what Donald advocates. Presently, the top four European players on the Ryder Cup World Points List automatically qualify, along with the best five from the Ryder Cup European Points List who haven't made it via the World List. And last week's Barclays tournament, the play-off event for the FedEx Cup, carries no Ryder Cup ranking points.
The current system has clearly been devised with a view to involving European Tour players - but doesn't it also unfairly hamper Europe's chances of assembling the strongest possible team? If that's so, the USA team have been granted an advantage even before a ball is struck.
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