"One can only imagine what his thoughts were when the news came through yesterday of Olazábal's latest change of heart." **

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Lawrence Donegan analyzes the dynamics of Jose Maria Olazábal's apparent interest in the 2010 Ryder Cup captaincy.

Montgomerie has not been offered the job – certainly not formally – but he has clearly been given the impression that next week's meeting in Dubai of the European Tour's tournament players' committee, where a final decision on the captaincy is due to be made, was a forgone conclusion. It may have been, but not any more. Such is Olazábal's stature within the game, and such is the respect with which he is held by his peers, that his newly-announced availability demands to be taken seriously.

Alas poor Monty, who now finds himself reduced from a red-hot certainty to a lukewarm favourite on the whim of a contemporary who has consistently bested him as they have progressed through their careers. One can only imagine what his thoughts were when the news came through yesterday of Olazábal's latest change of heart.

And here's the real crux of the matter for Monty, whose comments to Mark Reason last week could come back to haunt him should he decide to refute the notion that he'll be too old at 51 in 2014:

Olazábal has been far less decisive, or at least he was until Gómez's statement yesterday. There is also apparent agreement of the tournament players' committee that henceforth only players who are competing regularly on the tour will be offered the captaincy. In that case, 2010 represents the Scot's last chance. He may still be on tour in 2012, when the event will be held in Chicago, but his history in the United States, where he has long been the target of the "Hey Monty, eat a salad" brigade, rules him out, surely. Under the new policy, he will be too old by the time Gleneagles comes around in 2014.