Nick Faldo criticised Bernhard Langer today for leaving Europe's Ryder Cupcaptaincy up in the air but said he will not take over the reinsif the German qualifies for the team.
Langer said recently that he may hand over the captaincy if he is in a position to qualify for the team via one of the two points tables in operation.
Former world number one Faldo, who begins his bid tomorrow to play in his 12th Ryder Cup, did not apply for the captaincy because he wanted to make the team.
"When does he (Langer) change his mind? After the shirts have been selected or before?," Faldo said. "I'm surprised they (the tournament committee that voted in Langer) didn't ascertain that fact beforehand," the Briton added.
"You would have thought that would have been one of the questions for the committee to decide on.
"Bernhard needs to make the decision a lot earlier and I would have thought it would be a tough thing mentally to have two decisions going on in your mind. You must think 'which one am I going to commit to?'"
If Langer steps down the tournament committee will decide on the new captain.
"If you are the captain you want to put an awful lot of your personal touches to it in everything and then to suddenly hand it over to someone else is not very nice," Faldo said. "If he stood down, no way would I step in.
"I'm trying to play, it is as simple as that, and I'm going to give it one really big blast at playing. Then I will go for the 2006 captaincy."
The 46-year-old Faldo has not played in the Ryder Cup since helping Europe beat the United States in 1997 at Valderrama, Spain, and he needs to qualify from a top-five finish in one of the points tables.
The six-times major champion needs to move into the top 50 of the world rankings from his current 62nd place to have a chance of playing in the four World Golf Championship events.
"Players in the top 50 will play four extra events, so everybody hasn't started exactly equal but the good thing now is that wherever you are playing you are picking up points," said Faldo.