Paul Lawrie and Martin Laird both appreciate that making September's Ryder Cup team will require a colossal effort but the Scottish pair were offered words of encouragement last night by Jose Maria Olazabal, the Europe team captain.

On the day the Spaniard made his first significant decision of Ryder Cup year by revealing that he will delay the decision on his two wildcard picks until the day after the final qualifying event, the Johnnie Walker Championship at Gleneagles in August, Olazabal handed Scotland's leading challengers an incentive to keep knocking on the door.

Lawrie, who was a team-mate of Olazabal during the 1999 match at Brookline in the US, has had his cup ambitions refuelled by a second-place finish in December's Dubai World Championship and the 43-year-old is now up to sixth on the European points list, with the top five qualifying automatically for the side.

Laird, meanwhile, only started plundering points at the start of this year after becoming an affiliate member of the European Tour but a runners-up placing in the Hyundai Tournament of Champions has helped propel him up to 35th on the world order, from which a further five players will earn cup berths.

"Paul may be 43, but that's not too old to get back into the Ryder Cup team," said Olazabal, who recalled the 2&1 defeat he suffered to a US pairing featuring the 51-year-old Raymond Floyd during the fourballs of the 1993 contest.

"I had my backside kicked by a 51-year-old, so you cannot discount that type of player," he stated.

Of Laird, Olazabal added: "I am certainly aware of Martin's situation. He has made a good start and it's now a matter of keeping playing well. He is improving all the time, and becoming more consistent."

Olazabal has made the eminently sensible decision of delaying his captain's picks to avoid the delicate situation that confronted Colin Montgomerie during his stint as captain in 2010.

When European qualifying ended at Gleneagles that year and Monty unveiled his wild cards, the so-called "Gang of Four", namely Luke Donald, Padraig Harrington, Paul Casey and Justin Rose, were all still playing their final rounds of a FedEx Cup event in the US. Harrington and Donald heard they were in while Rose and Casey discovered they had missed out.

"I think the scenario last time was a delicate one," said Olazabal, ahead of this week's Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship. "So we are going to wait until whatever happens in the States before we make the decision. It would be fair for anybody that is playing in the States that might be on the verge of winning that tournament. It would be completely unfair to name those two picks before the guy even tees off."

Olazabal has been joined in a stellar field this week by former world No.1 Tiger Woods, who will make his first competitive appearance since he ended a two-year title drought by winning December's Chevron World Challenge. It was his third-place finish in the Australian Open prior to that success, however, that provided the real platform for his resurgence.

Asked if he viewed the Chevron win as a major step forward, he said: "I certainly did, but I think Australia was probably more.

"I played really well there, then carried on in the Presidents Cup and basically continued that trend in the World Challenge. Hopefully, I can build on that heading into this year and get ready for [the Masters in] Augusta."