One of the more obvious mantras in team sport is that to be successful you need to pick your best team.

And, yet, it’s amazing how often sport’s governing bodies appoint a manager, coach or captain, depending on the sport, and then take steps to restrict that selection process.

Take England’s miserable Rugby World Cup performance. We will never know whether Steffon Armitage or Nick Abendanon would have made a difference.

But, having been in the form of their lives last season, the French-based pair would surely have made the squad had the RFU not put in place a ban on selecting overseas players.

Now a similar issue has arisen in golf following Paul Casey's decision not to join the European Tour, barring him for Ryder Cup selection.

Having been based in the United States for many years, even the Tour’s decision to reduce the number of its tournaments he would have to play from 13 to five did not lure the former Hampton School pupil.

By putting his wife and young son first, Casey won’t be the first father to feel being away from home for weeks on end isn’t in the interests of his family.

So it was a bit rich of captain Darren Clarke to take a pot shot by saying he would focus “firmly on the players who are committed to the European cause”.

Casey represented the team with distinction in 2004, 2006 and 2008, but was left in tears in 2010 when he was left out by Colin Montgomerie despite being world number seven at the time.

Justin Rose this week suggested that experience had scarred Casey and predicted the 38-year-old, who rose from 75 to 24 in the rankings this year, could be in the top 10 again by the time the Ryder Cup comes around.

Keith Pelley, the new European Tour chief executive, said its new rules made it “very easy” for players to retain their membership.

Just as questions were asked after the World Cup, if this leads to losing the Ryder Cup, his rulebook will have been counter-productive.

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