Europe are doomed to defeat in the Ryder Cup. Captain Sam Torrance losing to his American counterpart Curtis Strange in a recent 18-hole "Wonderful World of Golf" challenge was hardly too worrying. A tad more disconcerting is that Europe's supposed big guns are performing more like pop-shooters with Messrs. Westwood, Montgomerie and Clarke without a win between them in Europe or America this year.

Big three or just big, bigger and biggest? Worse again is that Pierre Fulke, the man at the top of the European qualifying standings, has not finished better than tied 46th in any tournament since February. That is the kind of statistic that prompted Westwood to suggest a change in the selection process for when Europe inevitably seek to regain the trophy in 2003.

Alas, too late for the Belfry. Rather than awarding points for winning 18-hole matches in Melbourne in January, the European selectors should have asked any of our 19,000 managers how best to pick a team. The answer, of course, is to buy The Irish Times on a Thursday and study the Golf Masters rankings.

Taking the leading players from our Tour, Torrance wouldn't have to use any wildcards to renew the dream pairing from Brookline of Jesper Parnevik and Sergio Garcia. Crazily outside the top-12 in the official list, Garcia is now our leading European with Parnevik lying sixth.

Second-placed Bernhard Langer would be sure to regain his deserved spot and, as with the official rankings, Ireland's World Cup winning duo of Padraig Harrington and Paul McGinley would be well-placed for berths against the Americans.

Mathias Gronberg and Jose Maria Olazabal would need to show greater consistency to be sure of their spots and, quite rightly, the " would have to produce some big results to force their way on to the team. Pierre who?