AlastairForsyth offered no excuses yesterday for the prospect of the first European Ryder Cup team without a Scot.

"Nobody has played well enough," he said at Gleneagles as he prepared for this week's £1.4m Johnnie Walker Championship, the last counting event for next month's match at Valhalla, Kentucky.

No Scot can make the team on merit and when captain Nick Faldo completes his line-up on Sunday by announcing his two wild cards, the likelihood of Ryder Cup talisman Colin Montgomerie being selected on the basis of past exploits is considered slim.

Forsyth, currently the top world-ranked Scot at No.86, said: "I'm not surprised at the position. You might have hoped that two or three of us would be there but the results speak for themselves. Monty, with his experience, might have an outside chance but nobody has played well enough to be in contention."

There has been a Scottish representation on every Ryder Cup side since it became Europe in 1979 and you have to go back to 1937 to find a Great Britain & Ireland team without a Scot.

"There is the potential withguys like myself, Marc Warren, Stephen Gallacher, Paul Lawrie and, obviously, Monty, and there areothers coming through from the Challenge Tour. The more Scots we can get on tour, the better our chances and, hopefully, next time there will be a few of us," he added.

While the focus this week will be on the Ryder Cup, there is a still a tournament to play and Forsyth, already a winner in Europe this year, has raised his own standards further by finishing joint ninth at Oakland Hills in the US PGA Championship.

That guarantees a start next year and he is targeting other major championships, especially the Open for which he will be eligible should he finish in the top 20 in Europe this season. He is currently No.42.

"I still have a long way to go. I probably need a win or a couple of top finishes, but that is my next target," he said. "I played okay at the US Open and did well at the PGA. There is a chance I could play three majors next season, but I don't want to be talking just about getting into this and that. You want to get in and play your best and see how it stands up against the best players in the world."

Warren, the defending champion this week, has gone a step further to answering criticism by Bob Torrance, his former coach, that he is too interested in fast cars and buying flats - by dipping into real estate in Florida.

"I've got a place there to practise in winter," he explained. "You can't do that in Scotland. There's no place to practise your short game and on the range you can't see the true flight of the ball and what's actually happening."

Warren, joint fourth last week in the KLM Open in Holland, has returned to his guru from his amateur days, the national coach Ian Rae, and said yesterday that sticking with Torrance for so long had held him back, but making the final decision to leave such a respected figure had proved difficult.

"It dragged on about a year more than it should have," he said. "I should have made the decision a lot more quickly but with Bob personally it took a lot longer than a decision of just sacking a coach, I guess. That's been playing on my mind a lot and technically I haven't been where I wanted to be."

He has been drawn in one of the top pairings for the first two rounds in the company of Darren Clarke, the winner last week in Holland, and England's Justin Rose, who has given up his chance of playing in the last three FedEx Cup tournaments to try to cement his Ryder Cup place.

Clarke was full of admiration for that decision and underlined that Rose was giving up more than three big tournament starts.

"He now can't make the top 70 in the FedEx Cup standings which means that he forfeits pro-ams next year,"

he said. "There is no other golf on Wednesday's on the PGA Tour and so he will have to turn up early every week to get practice."

A total of 22 Scots are in the field this week, including tournament chairman Montgomerie, over a par-73 course that is soft after weeks of heavy rain and is playing its full 7320 yards.