Ballesteros Turned Down

The selection process for Europe’s Ryder Cup team will remain unchanged, dealing a setback to team captain Seve Ballesteros.

Ballesteros will have only two choices instead of the four he wanted for the Sept. 26-28 tournament against the United States at Valderrama, Spain.

With stars such as Nick Faldo, Jesper Parnevik, Jose Maria Olazabal, Bernhard Langer, Sandy Lyle and Ballesteros himself unlikely to make the top 10 Ryder Cup points standings, the Spaniard had called for a players’ ballot to change the selection process to accommodate four picks.

But the tournament committee of the PGA European Tour and the Ryder Cup committee announced the selection process will remain unaltered from the 10-plus-2 format that served for Europe’s 1995 triumph at Rochester, N.Y.

Ballesteros said recently he had received support to hold a ballot of the full European Tour membership to force a rule change.

“As the Ryder Cup committee has already received representations from a number of Ryder Cup candidates that they strongly disagree with any suggested alteration to the selection procedure then it would be inappropriate to hold a ballot,” the tournament committee said in a statement.