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A wealth of talent and matchplay experience will provide some difficult decisions for Europe’s new Ryder Cup captain

After just one counting event on the road to selecting Europe’s 2012 Ryder Cup team only a fool would make bold predictions. So here goes. Jamie Donaldson and David Lynn, a pair of long-standing and well-liked members of the European Tour occupying two of the 10 “automatic” spots on José María Olazábal’s team after last weekend’s European Masters in Switzerland will not travel to Chicago next September.

It is not that those two journeyman are not fine players– you don’t survive on the European Tour without being a good player – but plenty of others are better. Indeed, looking ahead to next year’s contest against the United States at Medinah Country Club Olazábal’s greatest concern, like that of his predecessor Colin Montgomerie, might be an excess of available talent and the awkward consequences that flow from that.

It is fine for a captain to make risky selections as long as he wins. But if he makes risky selections, as Montgomerie did for Wales, particularly with his inclusion of Padraig Harrington, and loses then he had better watch out. Let it never be forgotten that but for young Rickie Fowler’s ignorance when it comes to the rules of golf the BBC’s “2010 Coach of the Year” might have been joining Nick Faldo and Hal Sutton in captain calamity corner.

Fortunately the Spaniard is not a prisoner of an outsized ego and has rightly reduced the number of captain’s picks for next year from three to two. This is fairer to those competing for a place and to himself. While two captain’s picks does not stop criticism (ask Ian Woosnam) it does reduce the chances of back-page ridicule.

Olazábal, whose skin is a lot thinner than is generally imagined, should be grateful about that. He should also be grateful that the core members of his team are of such high quality they might as well visit the tailor and get measured for their uniforms at their earliest convenience. Rory McIlroy, Luke Donald, Lee Westwood, Martin Kaymer and Matteo Manassero – in that order – will play their way on to the team with at least half a dozen significant tournament victories between them over the next year, including a couple of majors.

After that, prediction becomes trickier. Perhaps it would be best to start by eliminating those who made the team at Celtic Manor but who will not participate next year. That means a fond farewell to Peter Hanson, Edoardo Molinari and Miguel Angel Jiménez. It is hard to believe they will match the consistency and competitive excellence that took them to Wales.

No doubt some would give up on Ross Fisher, too. The Englishman has fallen precipitously in the world rankings in recent times but there is a hint of something great in his game. He hits the ball high and he hits it for miles. And he is a better than average putter. In short, he is the essence of the modern professional. What he lacks is the self-belief that carried him through 2009 and 2010. If he rediscovers it, he will make the team.

The temptation might be to go for youth (Oliver Fisher, the Englishman who recently won his first European Tour event) or experience (Thomas Bjorn, who won in Switzerland on Sunday and in Scotland the previous Sunday).

I will go for neither of the above, although I think the Scandinavian presence will be strong in Chicago. Robert Karlsson would have played in Wales but for injury. He is, by the standards of the modern game, getting on in years (he’s 42) but he remains a terrific athlete and a wonderful (and underrated) player. He is restored to health, has based himself in the US and is playing consistently well. He will make the team.

To say Henrik Stenson will also make the team will sound batty to many but not to those who have seen the mercurial Swede at the his best (his victory at the 2009 Players Championship springs to mind) and who have noticed a big improvement in his game over the past few months under the guidance of the swing coach Pete Cowen. Stenson has come back from oblivion before under Cowen’s guidance and will do so again.

History suggests there will be a couple of surprises on the team and they will do well – call it the Oliver Wilson factor (or the Boo Weekley factor, from the US perspective). I guess they will be Alexander Noren of Sweden, who threatened to be really good a few years ago, slipped back, and returned to form this year with two European Tour wins; and Simon Dyson, another underrated player who keeps improving and winning every season.

In a normal year both would make the team, but not this year. Only one will make his Ryder Cup debut in Chicago and that one will be … coin toss … Dyson.

That leaves three places and at least half a dozen candidates, including two recent major champions in Padraig Harrington and Graeme McDowell, who is arguably the best matchplay competitor of his generation, Ian Poulter, the big-hitting Alvaro Quirós, Francesco Molinari, who played in Wales last year and went on to win a world championship event in China, the enigmatic Paul Casey and the phlegmatic Justin Rose.

Pick any three from the above six and you are unlikely to appreciably change the strength of the team. They would all do a turn. But it doesn’t need a mathematician to tell you six into three doesn’t go. Difficult decisions must be made.

Of the three available places, one will be an “automatic” selection from the Ryder Cup points list – Molinari, in all likelihood, who will be well served by his consistency. Which leaves the two captain’s picks.

Everything about Olazábal’s personality suggests he will be tempted to use his discretion to reward the two players who accumulated the most points without actually making the team. Such a move would appeal to his sense of fairness. But the Spaniard is a complicated soul. Professionals by their nature are ultra-competitive but Olazábal might be said to belong in the ultra-ultra-competitive class, which is a notch below the ultimately competitive class known as Seve Ballesteros.

When Seve was asked to choose between what was fair and what would give him the best chance of victory, he hardly blinked before pushing fairness to one side. Winning was all that mattered, especially in a Ryder Cup. Perhaps Olazábal, taking his cue from his old friend and mentor, will be similarly inclined to put victory before all else. I know I would, which is why I would pick McDowell and Poulter.

Both have performed well in recent Ryder Cups but have seen their form slip over the course of 2011. Perhaps they will get it back but recent portents have not been good. Indeed, the Englishman has been musing about his need to find an extra 20 yards off the tee and has embarked upon a new gym regime, much to the amusement of his colleagues who have long teased him about his sparrow legs and spaghetti arms.

Likewise, McDowell has been publicly downbeat about his own game and with some justification. He has fallen short of the incredible standards he set in 2010, not only failing to win an event but barely contending in any. And when he has contended, as in the Players Championship this spring and the Wales Open, he has thrown in a disastrous double-bogey or two to drop out of contention. While double-bogies are never welcome they are less damaging in matchplay and such bewildering inconsistency can be cured.

McDowell, as he has conceded, needs to adjust his attitude and knuckle down. He might also want to reconsider his decision to spend most of the year on the PGA Tour and accept that the trans-Atlantic lifestyle, and the bog-standard PGA Tour courses which give a distinct advantage to those who hit the ball far and high (the Northern Irishman does neither) don’t suit him.

He is a quintessential “European” player and, at his best, one of Europe’s finest, not least when it comes to matchplay. It is difficult to imagine a 2012 Ryder Cup team photograph, or the pairings on the opening morning of play at Medinah, without McDowell standing next to McIlroy.

Poulter’s inclusion would be more controversial, unless of course the Englishman plays himself into one of the 10 automatic spots. If he does, Olazábal’s life will be a lot easier and his squad will be enhanced. Poulter is a matchplay competitor par excellence – a talismanic figure who is capable of beating anyone over 18 holes. But what if his form doesn’t recover over the next 12 months? What if he can’t find the extra 20 yards he is desperately seeking? And what if he hasn’t earned enough points to get on the team but still decides, as he did in 2008, to skip the final qualifying event at Gleneagles next August? What if any player seeking a captain’s pick made such a foolhardy choice?

It is hard to believe that Poulter or anyone else would pull such a stunt again. If they did they won’t be playing in the 2012 Ryder Cup. Not in my team. And not in any team captained by José María Olazábal.

Donegan’s European Ryder Cup team for 2012

Rory McIlroy

Luke Donald

Lee Westwood

Martin Kaymer

Matteo Manassero

Robert Karlsson

Henrik Stenson

Simon Dyson

Ross Fisher

Francesco Molinari

Graeme McDowell

Ian Poulter