Six players from Britain and Ireland and two from Continental Europe are not at St-Nom la Breteche for what used to be called the Seve Trophy in honour of Seve Ballesteros. Paul Casey and Martin Kaymer are injured and Padraig Harrington and Luke Donald are playing in the Tour Championship in Atlanta, but Poulter joined Lee Westwood, Justin Rose and Sergio Garcia in turning down their places on teams led by Paul McGinley and Thomas Bjorn.

“I just feel that when you are selected for your country more of an effort might well have been made,” admitted
Montgomerie. “Ian Poulter, not having qualified for the Tour Championship and having been picked for the last Ryder Cup team [Westwood, Rose and Garcia all qualified], I felt a little more effort might have been made to come.

“I haven’t spoken to Ian at all. Please don’t make any big issue of this. I would like to focus on the players that are here and not the players that aren’t. It does give a chance for those who wouldn’t otherwise have played to impress not just the captains and their team-mates, but me also. You could have over half the team here and it will be interesting to see who performs within a team environment.”

Poulter agreed with that sentiment but also explained why he, himself, would not be one of them. “The Vivendi trophy will be awesome to highlight potential Ryder Cup players – Fisher, McIlroy, Kjeldsen, Quiros, Dougherty, Wood, etc,” he commented on his Twitter feed.

“I really want to be fresh and strong for all the Ryder Cup qualifying events that I’m going to play in – Ryder Cup means everything to me. It would have been great to play the Seve Trophy, but the schedule becomes very difficult to play every event. It’s important not to burn out.”

Westwood was the only one of the absentees to contact McGinlay, explaining that he wanted a week off to rest and recharge his batteries for the final few events in the “Race to Dubai” money list.

“I didn’t agree with him and I don’t agree with him, but I respect that he’s his own man and he can make his own decisions,” McGinlay said. “I’ve always been a great team player and whenever I’ve got picked for a team I play. Others guys see it another way but I respect that they have a different opinion.”