‘Players who snubbed Seve Trophy should remember what he did for us’

Olazabal was in Paris 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.”

Meanwhile, international team captain Greg Norman insists his two remaining picks for the Presidents Cup will be determined by form rather than nationality, but would have little hesitation picking two more Australians if it meant boosting the home crowd edge.

Ten of the 12 places for November’s tournament have been decided on points following Sunday’s final round of the BMW Championship, with three Australians already in the mix. World No 7 Jason Day, tenth-ranked Adam Scott and former US Open champion Geoff Ogilvy will fly the home flag at the tournament’s return to Royal Melbourne, the venue for the Internationals’ sole victory over the Americans in 1998.

“First of all, I’m picking the player, not picking the flag, number one,” he said.

“How they’ve been in the last 90-100 days is important to me.

“Obviously if you focus on the flag behind the player’s name, you need crowd favourites, people who can pull the crowd in and get the crowd going for you, so we’d like to have that because we really didn’t have that at San Francisco.

“If you look at it that way, yes, you’d like to have two Australians on there.”