Olazabal happy with new Ryder selection criteria

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, he’ll select the best team.

“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.

“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”.

Qualifying starts in September and runs through to the end of August next year. But Olazabal could still face the same problem that Montgomerie did in the final week.

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.