Europe must stop player exodus

ONE doesn’t need a degree in rocket science to realise that Europe must always field their very best possible side if they are to have any chance of beating the Americans in the Ryder Cup.

And that's why another animated debate is raging about the qualifying process for the team to face the Yanks at Oakland Hills in September.

When it was agreed to change the format so that form worldwide would be recognised just as much as on the home circuit, the belief was that every European would be brought within the fold, whether or not he ever teed up a ball in his native place.

However, that has turned out not to be the case. A clause among the rules dictates that each candidate for inclusion must take part in 11 tournaments on the European Tour.

The small print caught a lot of people out, including the American-based Luke Donald of England and Jesper Parnevik of Sweden, not to mention Lee Westwood, who has been airing his views over the past few days.

"The last time I checked, the Ryder Cup was between Europeans and Americans, not the European Tour against the US Tour," Westwood said.

"If you ask Jesper where he is from, he will say Sweden. Luke has an English flag on his bag. He has always set out his stall to play on the US Tour. Why should he be penalised for doing that and living his dream and not being able to play in the Ryder Cup?"

Fair enough, you might say but it's not as simple as that, far from it. Darren Clarke is right when he disagrees with his friend Westwood when stressing that "you should be a member of the European Tour to play in the Ryder Cup, you need a commitment to our tour".

Indeed. Imagine just what would happen to the European Tour if not just Parnevik and Donald, two guys who gained their liking for the States from their student days there, were to be joined by, say, Pádraig Harrington, Clarke, Westwood, Thomas Bjorn, Justin Rose, Paul Casey, Ian Poulter and a few more? What would the sponsors think of that?

The answer is obvious. They would leave in droves and European golf would be back in the bad old days.

Furthermore, Donald and Parnevik are just the tip of the iceberg. Matthias Gronberg and Carl Pettersson have departed these waters for the States. Yet another Swede, Per-Ulrik Johnansson, did so many years ago.

Ken Schofield and George O'Grady, the big two at European Tour headquarters in Wentworth, have to try and stop this haemmoraging of top players.

They recognise only too well that the glory days of European golf are over, those heady years when Seve Ballesteros, Bernhard Langer, Nick Faldo, Sandy Lyle, Ian Woosnam and Jose-Maria Olazabal plundered the major championships almost at will and in doing so generated huge and unprecedented interest in European golf.

Seve is a thing of the past, Lyle and Woosnam very nearly so, Faldo, Langer and Olazabal still have their moments but they are few and far between. You search for their successors, guys not alone blessed with extraordinary golfing skills but also with that something special we like to call charisma. But you search in vain.

Colin Montgomerie? Sure, he was a terrific player, good enough to capture the European order of merit on seven successive occasions. Today he is almost certainly another spent force where the biggest occasions are concerned. The last European winner of a major was Paul Lawrie at the highly controversial 1999 British Open at Carnoustie.

All that being the case, it is incumbent on the European Tour to try and keep as many of their leading players at home as much as possible.

As it is, they are finding it increasingly difficult to put together fields that will attract the public and satisfy the sponsors.

Money alone doesn't guarantee anything. Heavens above, Pádraig Harrington played in the Macau Open last weekend rather than the British Masters in the English Midlands. In a couple of weeks time, he will be operating in the States when Volvo are putting up €3.75 million, the largest prize fund in Europe this year for the tour's flagship tournament, the Volvo PGA Championship.

But don't disparage Harrington for doing so. He is, in fact, one of the most loyal members of the European Tour and is in China this week to defend the Asian Open when he would surely prefer to be back home getting ready for the defence of a far more prestigious title, the Deutsche Bank TPC of Europe next week.

He is in China simply because he believes the holder should always turn up the following year. As for missing out on Wentworth, it's not an easy one to explain away except to point to his dislike of the course and his preference for one of the most attractive events on the US schedule, the Memorial Tournament at Jack Nicklaus's much-lauded Muirfield Village. That represents the start of Harrington's preparation for the US Open at Shinnecock Hills, Long Island, New York, next month.

Harrington (who finished 5th in Macau) is joined in China by Paul McGinley, who performed very respectably at the Forest of Arden on his first week back after knee surgery.