Captain Langer facing Ryder Cup headache

ANOTHER European Ryder Cup campaign commences this week when the points-counting tournaments for the 2004 matches at Oakland Hills near Detroit next September get under way at the European Masters in Switzerland.

With a different system for team selection the top five off the world rankings and five off the European Tour rankings plus two captain's picks trying the predict the composition of Bernhard Langer's side is a more hazardous exercise than ever. And in spite of Darren Clarke's heroics in the United Sates over the past fortnight, Lee Westwood's very welcome but totally unexpected return to the victory rostrum in Munich at the weekend and Justin Rose's fine form in Boston over the past few days, the next European side will still be travelling with far more hope than confidence.

Until Clarke struck his magnificent blow in the NEC World Invitational and then followed up with an excellent few days in Boston, the Europeans had taken such a pasting all year until you wouldn't have given them a chance had the Ryder Cup taken place this year. In spite of what Clarke, Rose and Westwood have done in very recent times, it is a salutary thought to look at the teams which have been finalised for the President's Cup match in South Africa and wonder if Europe could cope with either of them!

Tiger Woods, of course, leads the Yanks followed by Davis Love III, Jim Furyk, David Toms, Kenny Perry, Phil Mickelson, Justin Leonard, Chris DiMarco, Jerry Kelly and Charles Howell III with Fred Funk and Jay Haas as skipper Jack Nicklaus's picks. It is a formidable side by any standards and you can't help feeling that Nicklaus was swayed more by honouring a couple of players for their contributions to the game of golf rather than digging deeper for a couple of younger men who would have strengthened his hand still further.

Given that the Rest of the World cannot call upon any Europeans, it seems as if Gary Player also has a powerful squad from which to plot another downfall of the Americans. He kicks off with Ernie Els, Vijay Singh, Mike Weir, Nicky Price and Retief Goosen. On their day, this quintet would take an awful lot of beating. Then come five extremely capable Australians in Robert Allenby, Stephen Leaney, Peter Lonard, Adam Scott and Stuart Appleby with Korea's KJ Choi, a US Tour winner, and the emerging South African, Tim Clark, as Player's wild cards.

It is an interesting exercise, then, to examine the kind of side Langer would have at his disposal if he had to face a Ryder Cup challenge later this month. You take our top five in the world rankings - Padraig Harrington, Sergio Garcia, Clarke, Thomas Bjorn and Colin Montgomerie and declare them automatic choices. Turn then to the European Tour order of merit and the side is completed by Swede Fredrik Jacobsen, with two top 10 finishes in the US and British Opens this year, Paul Casey and Ian Poulter of England, Alistair Forsyth of Scotland and another Englishman, Brian Davis.

As Langer surveys this lot, he quickly realises US Ryder Cup counterpart Hal Sutton isn't exactly shaking in his boots or that neither Nicklaus nor Player would be dismayed at the prospect of meeting such a side if the chance arose.

Hang on a minute, though, Bernhard tells himself, I can bolster that side appreciably with my two selections. So he goes through the options and the smile slowly fades from his face again. He pencils in a huge number of names: Rose right now would be a banker. Luke Donald and Alexander Cejka have been suggesting they are capable of big things. The British media have been heralding the arrival of Nick Dougherty for some time but he has yet to win while our own Graeme McDowell won the Scandinavian Masters last year but has achieved little since.

Let's not forget the older guys. Nick Faldo thinks he can still play a bit but he's been a long way from proving it. Paul Lawrie performed nobly in 1999, Jose-Maria Olazabal is a Ryder Cup legend. Current form? Precious little to write home about. And what about the heroes of The Belfry 2002, players like Paul McGinley and Phillip Price, who did the business when the pressure was at its highest; the Swedes Jesper Parnevik and Niclas Fasth and one time world number four Lee Westwood, a winner again after three years and very welcome development. Hopefully, though, it's not a case of one swallow, a summer and that kind of thing.

But would you put your bottom dollar on any of them right now? Well, with the possible exception of Price, who had a great spell in mid-summer, and Westwood, I didn't think so. I am one of those who believes Langer should have bided his time before accepting the captaincy, largely because of a belief he still has much to offer himself as a player and is himself now hinting as much.

It will make the points race fascinating to watch.