Nick Faldo has again expressed his hope that he will be Europe's captain at the 2006 Ryder Cup when it is staged at the K Club.
Faldo, a winner of three Masters and three British Open Championships, played on 11 Ryder Cup teams from 1977 to 1997 and celebrated victories in four of them.
In 46 matches he played, Faldo won 23, lost 19 and halved four.
While promoting his new book, Life Swings, on CNN, he admitted: "I'm going to put my name in the hat for '06, as will a few others. We have a tour committee and a Ryder Cup committee, so we'll see what happens."
Though he will face stiff competition for the captaincy, Faldo does merit serious consideration.
"What do I bring?" he said. "I played under quite a few captains, learning tactics and how to prepare the team."
EUROPEAN TOUR: Ernie Els cannot catch Vijay Singh at the top of the world rankings in Scotland this week, but he can overtake Colin Montgomerie and become the biggest money-earner in European Tour history.
Winning the World Golf Championship title at Mount Juliet on Sunday took the South African to career earnings of €15,205,219 in 14 seasons of playing in Europe.
Seven-time Order of Merit winner Montgomerie had a four-year start, but his €16,916,815 total winnings mean he is under attack at the Dunhill Links championship, which starts tomorrow.
With a purse of €5 million up for grabs, a top-eight finish might do for Els if Montgomerie misses a third successive halfway cut on the circuit.
The pair are way ahead in the career money table. Darren Clarke is next with €13.7 million, followed by Retief Goosen (€12.1 million), Bernhard Langer (€11.5 million), Padraig Harrington (€11.1 million) and Lee Westwood (€10.3 million). Singh, Nick Faldo, Jose Maria Olazabal, Thomas Bjorn and Miguel Angel Jimenez are next.
Els broke Westwood's record for one season on the Order of Merit when he took his total to €3.4 million at the weekend, but there is a chance to add a lot more yet.
The Dunhill first prize at St Andrews on Sunday is over €800,000 and next week's HSBC World Match Play Championship at Wentworth, where he is the defending champion and going for a record-breaking sixth victory, carries golf's biggest winner's cheque of €1.4 million, although for money list purposes that is being scaled down.
Winning both could take Els to the world number one spot, but only if Singh, who missed last week after his Florida home was damaged by Hurricane Jeanne, has a rough time on the course as well.
With five wins in his last six starts and new record US Tour total of nearly $9.5 million, that seems highly unlikely.
Ten of Europe's triumphant Ryder Cup team play this week, plus other major winners in Goosen, Rich Beem, Fred Couples, Ben Curtis, Steve Elkington, Paul Lawrie, Sandy Lyle, Jose Maria Olazabal and Ian Woosnam.
Westwood is the defending champion, having beaten Els by a shot last year after an albatross in his third round at Kingsbarns.
CHALLENGE TOUR: The 2005 European Challenge Tour will make an early start next month with tournaments in Mexico, Panama and Peru, the European Tour have announced.
First up is the 47th Abierto Mexicano de Golf, at the Club de Golf de Hacienda in Mexico City from November 25th-28th.
Over the following two weeks, the Panama Open will be held at the Coronado Beach and Golf Resort and the Peru Open at Los Incas Country Club in Lima.
It will be the third consecutive season the Challenge Tour has co-sanctioned events with the Tour de las Americas (TLA).
"Our TLA players strongly support the relationship between the TLA and the European Challenge Tour," TLA commissioner Henrique Lave said in a statement.
