With less than a week to go until the final selections are officially announced, the teams set to contest the inaugural Vivendi Trophy with Severiano Ballesteros from September 24-27 are taking shape nicely.
The two teams from Continental Europe and Great Britain & Ireland will not be officially unveiled until after the conclusion of the Mercedes-Benz Championship on Monday September 14, but the profile of the two sides is already becoming clear.
The Continental Europe Team will be without Germany’s Martin Kaymer, currently the leader of The Race to Dubai, who is still recuperating from the broken foot he suffered last month.
But Captain Thomas Björn will still be able to call on World Number Five Henrik Stenson of Sweden, as well as a number of in-form players including Denmark’s Søren Hansen and the Spanish trio of Gonzalo Fernandez-Castaño, Miguel Angel Jiménez and Alvaro Quiros.
Thomas Levet, currently the first reserve following Kaymer’s withdrawal, is also set to play, therefore guaranteeing some “home” involvement at Saint-Nom-la-Bretèche GC in Paris, France.
For Great Britain & Ireland, Captain Paul McGinley should be able to call on a highly-talented team including the likes of Lee Westwood of England and Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy, currently third and fourth respectively in The Race to Dubai, as well as Simon Dyson, winner of the KLM Open a fortnight ago.
