Ryder Cup Captain Slams Seve Trophy No-Shows

Ryder Cup captain Jose Maria Olazabal has slammed the likes of major champions Rory McIlroy, Martin Kaymer and Graeme McDowell for not making the effort to compete in the Seve Trophy.

Olazabal was in France overseeing the biennial tournament won by Paul McGinley's Great Britain and Ireland on Sunday by three points over a Continental Europe team captained by Jean Van de Velde.

Despite mailing letters to as many as three dozen prospective players on both sides, some of Europe's leading players elected to skip the competition.

Olazabal said that the next tournament in 2013 would be moved to a timeslot that would ensure players would have no excuse to miss the event.

In two years time we are hoping this event moves to the week of the Presidents Cup, and after the end of the FedEx Cup, and if that is the case there will be no excuse not to be present, Olazabal told reporters.

The biennial Presidents Cup has the United States playing an International team of non-European players.

Olazabal said the players at the Seve Trophy had played out of respect for the late five-time major winner Seve Ballesteros, who died in May at the age of 54 after losing a long battle with brain cancer.

We all know how instrumental Seve had been to the growth of the European Tour, Olazabal added.

I know the younger generation did not have the chance to play when Seve was around but we are here playing on the European Tour in many ways because of Seve ...

But Seve was the first man who was instrumental in turning things around on the European Tour for the better and the younger players now on the European Tour need to remember that.

They should make a little extra effort and make this event what it deserves to be.

So that will be the idea of moving it so that there are no more excuses.