(a) Defending champions (provided they enter as a team)
(b) The leading 18 available players, each native-born citizens of different countries, from the official World Golf Ranking on Monday September 23rd 2002 will qualify. The country will qualify by virtue of these 18 players. Should a player decline the opportunity to play, the next player in the Official World Golf Ranking will qualify providing his country is not already qualified.
NOTE: One of the 18 from this category could be a player from the same country as the defending champions, provided his position on the Official World Golf Ranking is better than that of at least one of the two defending
champions.
(c) These 18 players will be paired with the next highest ranked available from the applicable country on the Official World Golf Ranking.
(d) Six countries from the World qualifiers to be held on TBC will complete the field of 24 nations.
NB: (i) If a second team from the same country as the defending champions enters (bringing the number of teams from (a) and (b) above 19) then one additional spot will be available through the World qualifier.
(ii) If the host country is not qualified they will be invited and the qualifying tournaments will have the number of qualifying places reduced from 6 to 5
(iii) If fewer than 20 teams enter the world qualifying competition, the number of qualifiers will decrease from 6 to 4 and the number of qualifiers from the Official World Golf Ranking increase from 18 to 20.
