An ailing Lee Westwood missed the halfway cut for the fifth successive tournament at Wentworth on Friday.

But the difference this time is that it looks to have cost the former European number one a place in the US Open - and that in turn is bound to damage the chances of him being part of Europe's Ryder Cup team in September.

Westwood, a member of the last four sides and Sergio Garcia's partner for most of the last two, has been suffering from tonsilitis and could add only a 74 to his opening 75 for a 36-hole total of 149, five over, at the BMW Championship.

His early exit from the European Tour's flagship event - a tournament where he has now missed the cut five of the last six years - follows his failures at the Masters, New Orleans Classic and Wachovia Championship in America and then the British Masters at The Belfry two weeks ago.

"I've been under the weather all week," said the Worksop golfer, who pulled out of Wednesday's pro-am.

"I'm just hitting too many poor shots and my putting is letting me down more than anything."

Westwood, 55th in the world rankings, needed a top five finish to climb into the top 50 before Monday's cut-off for US Open exemptions.

Qualifying at Walton Heath a week later was an option - that is the route Michael Campbell took to his first major title last year - but Westwood stated: "I'm busy then - I've got a company day. I had no intention of playing."

He has decided instead to play the Memorial tournament in Ohio and although there is a qualifying tournament nearby the following day (June 5) he is not allowed to switch to that.

Missing out on the second major of the season would be a huge setback for him in the Ryder Cup race.

He is currently outside the top 30 in the standings and captain Ian Woosnam said only three weeks ago that Westwood and Padraig Harrington "have to start making a move really" to qualify.

But Westwood, who has spent most of the early season in the States, said in response: "I'm not prepared to change my schedule just for one week's golf. I set my stall out last year to play in America and I'm going to stick to it. I see no reason to change.

"I love playing in the Ryder Cup and have been very proud, but I do this for a living.

"Looking at it (the points table) somebody is going to miss out and I'm not confident it won't be me.

"But a lot changes over the summer. If you play really well in the next three weeks you almost guarantee yourself a place in the team."

That, though, was before the British Masters and the three weeks he was referring to have seen him fall down the table rather than climb it.

During yesterday's first round of the Italian Open at Castello di Tolcinasco he insisted: "I have to be firm about it and say that people who play more in Europe will have a better chance of getting into the team."

He named Ireland's Padraig Harington and England's Lee Westwood among the men whose transatlantic form was causing him concern.

"They have to start making a move," he said. "We are a European team. There's a lot of money to make in America but they have to make the choice of trying to make it on world points or the European order of merit. If they are playing here, they are getting both."

Westwood and Harington occupy 12th and 13th places in the world table from which only the top five qualify automatically. Harington lies 13th in the European list, while Westwood is an even lowlier 25th - one place above Ian Poulter, another of the singles winning heroes of the victory at Oakland Hills, Michigan, in 2004. Poulter ranks 20th in Europe.

Woosnam, who conceded most of the absentees would be back competing in Europe from next week, plans to "get the message through" to his players at a meeting during the BMW Championship at Wentworth on May 25-28.

He welcomed Jose Maria Olazabal's near-certain return to cup action and praised the winning form of two former cup men, Swede Niclas Fasth (Spanish Open) and Paul Broadhurst (Portuguese Open).

"Fasth is spending his time in Europe trying to make the team and I can see Broadhurst playing his way in," Woosnam said.

Broadhurst slipped to a 74 when partnering Woosnam, 70, in yesterday's first round here but the third man in the group, John Bickerton, beaten by Fasth in a play-off in Spain on Sunday, shot 69.

Denmark's Soren Kjeldsen, whose only Tour triumph came in the 2003 Diageo Championship at Gleneagles, equalled the course record with a nine-birdie 63 to lead by two strokes from the Englishman Benn Barham.

England's Paul Casey set his sights on the Ryder Cup and next year's Majors after putting a woeful spell behind him with victory at the Volvo China Open.

Casey, 28, won the TCL Classic in March but then tumbled down the rankings as he reached a staggering 61-over-par in 11 rounds of golf, pulling out of the US Open after a first-day 85.

However, the 2004 WGC World Cup champion was third in the European Masters in September and seventh at the HSBC Champions tournament before coming from nowhere here for his fifth European Tour win.

The $1,3-million (about R9-million) China Open was the second event on the 2006 European schedule and third-last on this year's Asian Tour. Casey, who began the tournament ranked 61, is now hoping to break back into the top 50 to qualify for the majors and has his heart set on a return to the Ryder Cup team.

"I have said many times that I struggled over 2005 but when the Ryder Cup points started in Switzerland it felt like a fresh start and even teeing it up in the HSBC felt like a clean slate," he said.

"In 2005 I fell behind guys on the money list and it was just a little bit frustrating really so it's nice to have a clean start and I feel very energised about everything.

"Wiping the slate clean and having a fresh start did seem to change my game around completely."

Casey, a wild-card entry who went on to star in the last Ryder Cup with four out of five points, said appearing at Ireland's K Club next year was one of his top ambitions.

"Last time I accomplished it without winning events but this time it's a huge goal," he said. "Ireland will be massive, the last time out was an unbelievable experience and I've never played anything like it before.

"It's addictive and I want to make sure I'm at the K Club but I have to go about it the right way and win golf events."

However, Casey will want to keep his counsel if he makes the team. He was targeted by American fans after saying Europe "properly hate" the US players and "the vast majority of Americans simply don't know what's going on".

Casey started the last round here five shots off the pace but shot a course record-equalling 65 to set up a dramatic play-off victory over compatriot Oliver Wilson.

Wilson, 25, was a shot up with two holes to go but bogeyed the 17th while mistakenly gunning for birdie.

"Seventeen was the one. If I had parred that, it would have been safe and I didn't know at the time and I was trying to make birdie," he said.

Wilson then went to pieces on the first play-off hole, landing in two bunkers for bogey while Casey coolly took a birdie. - Sapa-AFP

He was down, he was out, he was yesterday's man. He had been a worthy member of the game's elite, but no more. He had had a tortuous time in his personal life and there seemed no way that he could recover his previous status. And yet, with his victory in the UBS Hong Kong Open on Sunday, that same fading star finds himself once more in the world's top ten. Colin Montgomerie is back where he belongs, with bells ringing, horns sounding and flags flying.

If, 18 months ago, somebody had suggested that his future had all been behind him, Montgomerie would have done one of two things: either stamped off in high dudgeon, always a possibility with this most volatile of individuals, or rebutted the point with some asperity.

In his heart of hearts, though, he must have been wondering whether his song was in its final verse and coming to a close. He had not been a contender for so long and just as winning becomes a habit, so does failing to do so. He knew what victory felt like -- he had had 20 of them in the seven years in succession he had topped the European Order of Merit between 1993 and 1999.

He had, however, also experienced the other side of the coin. He had won only twice since 2002, including none in 2003. Just as his 14-year marriage to Eimear was disintegrating so, too, was his game. Truly, it seemed, we were watching the downfall of a golfing Titan.

There were no third parties involved in the Montgomeries' divorce, except, perhaps, for golf itself. Montgomerie had been dedicated to his game and relentlessly ambitious, perhaps to the exclusion of all others too much of the time, during those seven halcyon years. It did not need a leap of imagination to wonder whether the Royal and Ancient game had been an over-demanding mistress who kept asking for, and being given, more.

But now here he was, a busted flush in a high-rolling game. Or so it seemed. In retrospect, perhaps the turning point in what was to become a return from a dark place he had not visited for years -- at one time, he had fallen to No 83 in the world rankings -- came in a suburb of Detroit in September last year.

He had been a talismanic figure in the European cause during the 90s but had needed a wild-card selection by Bernhard Langer, the captain, to play at Oakland Hills. Montgomerie has admitted since that he was not sure if Langer would pick him or not, although being omitted would, in truth, never have been an option for Langer.

Montgomerie was simply superb in the United States. He scored three points out of four and the putt he holed to beat David Toms was the stroke that meant that Europe had retained the cup and also maintained his unbeaten record in seven singles matches.

It was the pivotal moment in the burly Scot's fortunes. His belief in himself had returned and it did not take long before he demonstrated it. He finished outside the top ten only once in his first six appearances of the 2005 season -- and in that one he was eleventh. But his path in that spell was not always a smooth one.

His worst moment in an otherwise seminal year came when he was accused of not replacing his ball in the correct place after lightning had caused a cessation of play in the Indonesian Open and although he retained his place -- he tied for fourth -- and the prize money, which he promptly donated to the Asian Tsunami appeal, the row rumbled on for months. He was upset by the allegations of some of his peers but, if anything, it merely strengthened his resolve.

The two performances that not only boosted his chances of winning the money list but also confirmed that he was again in the thick of it were his second place to Tiger Woods in the 134th Open Championship in July and his return to Old course to win the dunhill links championship in October. It was his first individual victory at the home of golf.

It was also his only win of the season, but there were 13 other top ten, all but one on the European Tour, to augment it. He would not admit it in a million daybreaks and sunsets, but he had been away. This latest triumph on the other side of the world -- and that precious ninth place in the global order -- serves only to underline the fact that he is back with a vengeance.

Tiger Woods might be spending the better part of September in Britain and Ireland.

Woods said Tuesday he might play the HSBC World Match Play Championship in England next year for the first time since he lost in the finals to Mark O’Meara in 1998. The tournament is to be played Sept. 14-17, which is one week before the Ryder Cup in Ireland. The week after the Ryder Cup is the American Express Championship in London, and Woods is the defending champion.

“I’m looking at that right now,” Woods said. “I could do a three-week stint there. You don’t have to travel far.”

Woods played the week before the Ryder Cup the last time it was held in Europe. He won the American Express Championship at Mount Juliet in Ireland, then went on to The Belfry for the ’02 matches.

He caused a stir that week in Ireland when he said a World Golf Championship title was more important to him than winning the Ryder Cup. “Why? I can think of a million reasons,” Woods said, referring to the $1 million prize.

The World Match Play Championship has the richest payoff in golf, with more than $1.7 million going to the winner.