Monty accepts Ryder Cup situation

European Ryder Cup captain Colin Montgomerie has been forced to accept that a number of players will not be answering his call to play in the final qualifying event.

In June Montgomerie was convinced that anybody still trying to make his side would attend the Johnnie Walker Championship at Gleneagles in two weeks' time.

But following Justin Rose's lead in saying he will be playing the first of the FedEx Cup play-offs in America instead - which does not carry qualifying points - there are others planning to do the same.

Padraig Harrington and Paul Casey are not in a qualifying spot either at the moment, while Luke Donald could be in need of a wild card too come the week - and Montgomerie has only three wild cards.

They could all lock up spots at this week's US PGA Championship, of course, and that is what Montgomerie must now hope.

"What's happened is a number of my potential candidates are going to be playing over here, as opposed to at Gleneagles," said Montgomerie, who received an invitation to play at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin.

"I said at the start of the year I would like everybody that was in that position to be playing at Gleneagles (he also said then 'they will be there').

"I accept that how well they have played (on the PGA Tour) has given them opportunity to do very well within this FedEx series.

"I think it's a big reason why the American team did so well last time. It's keeping the Americans playing throughout this time between the US PGA and the Ryder Cup - it's about a six-week gap.

"The FedEx Cup series has helped them, so if it's helping the Americans play well there's no reason why it shouldn't help us as well.

"I wish them success, so it won't affect them either way if they don't happen to be playing at Gleneagles."

Except, of course, that at least one star will have to miss out on the Ryder Cup if more than three of them are competing for wild cards.

The USPGA is the last qualifying event for the American side - and the main interest, naturally, is on whether Tiger Woods can make it into the top eight and not need a captain's pick.

The world number one, joint 78th out of 80th in last week's US PGA Championship in Akron with a career-worst 18 over par score, believes he can turn things round.

The fact remains, though, that he has not added to his 14 majors since the 2008 US Open - and five of the last six majors have been won by players who had never previously achieved such success.

That run started with Lucas Glover at last year's US Open. Then came Stewart Cink in The Open and Korean YE Yang - ranked 110th in the world at the time - overcame Woods in this event.

Britain's Lee Westwood, injured now and resting in Portugal this week, had the chance to keep things going when he led The Masters with a round to play in April.

Mickelson got the better of him and with it lifted his fourth major, but Northern Ireland's Graeme McDowell was a surprise winner of the US Open and South African Louis Oosthuizen a shock winner of The Open - by seven strokes.

McDowell, Oosthuizen and Mickelson, in accordance with tradition, play together the first two rounds.

Woods, meanwhile, is paired with Yang, who remains the only player to have stopped Woods winning a major when he led with a round to go.