Luke Donald, Justin Rose and some of the leading European players had asked the European Tour to count team events such as; the Ryder Cup, Presidents Cup, and the Seve Trophy, toward its tournament appearance requirements.

The European Tour just announced that it would in fact count an appearance in a team event as a qualified appearance to meet European Tour membership requirements.

European Tour events are scattered around the world and some become a hardship for players to attend. Several of the top European Tour players are full time members of the PGA. They reside and play primarily in the U.S. Luke Donald, Justin Rose, and Ian Poulter have been stars on the PGA Tour for several years. Rory McIlroy, Graeme McDowell and Lee Westwood have residences in Florida and intend to play more on the PGA Tour.

For these players to travel internationally to play in the required number of events and maintain their European Tour membership status becomes difficult. 

The PGA Tour already counts the Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup as official appearances for its members.

Each Tour has a set number of events that tour members have to attend to maintain their playing privileges on that particular tour.  The PGA requires its members to play in 15 events and the European Tour requires 13 events.

Some events are co-sponsored, the four majors and the four WGC events. These allow players to receive dual appearance credit and yields eight automatic appearances for each tour. 

By adding the team events to the list for the Europeans they will only be required to play in four other European Tour events. 

Most Europeans play at least one event in the Middle East or on the Sunshine Tour in January and February. 

Starting next year the new $7 million Turkish Open which will be held the week prior to the season ending Dubai World Championship will add another event that the top players will not want to miss. 

With the addition of the team events Europeans will only need to add one more event to their calendar year to meet the European Tour’s 13 event mandate to maintain their membership status.