Twelve months on Donald, as world number 14, is in position to return the favour to Casey. Except it is not quite as simple as that.

The rules of the World Cup are that on September 19 the leading 18 available players of different nationalities on the world rankings qualify their countries for the £2.2m (€3.27m) event at Vilamoura in Portugal between November 17 and 20.

Those players are then invited to pick a partner, providing that player is in the world’s top 100. If that is not possible, then the next highest-ranked golfer is offered the place.

Last year Casey was England’s number one and by picking Donald he was merely going for the number two.

Now however Donald has taken over as his country’s leading light while Casey, despite a recent upturn in fortunes, is only the fifth-ranked Englishman.

Between him and Donald are Howell, Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter and it is understood Howell will get the nod from his Ryder Cup colleague.

Howell has never represented England in the World Cup but has been one of the stars of this season.

The 30-year-old from Swindon led the Masters for a while in April, lost play-offs for the British Masters and Irish Open and then, after two months out with a torn abdominal muscle, won only his third event two weeks ago. It was his first victory for six years.

For the past five years the event has been part of the World Golf Championships.

Tiger Woods and David Duval won it in Argentina in 2000 and Ernie Els and Retief Goosen the following year, but just like the World Match Play at Wentworth there were a large number of withdrawals of big names last year and the same could well happen this time.

In Seville the United States, for example, were represented by Scott Verplank and Bob Tway and managed only seventh place.

Darren Clarke has not played since 1996, allowing Padraig Harrington and Paul McGinley to be partners for an unbroken run starting with their victory in the United States in 1997.

Colin Montgomerie has not played since 1999, but is currently Scotland’s only representative in the world’s top 100. Stephen Gallacher is next.

If Montgomerie chooses not to play, Scotland would be forced to qualify and may not even be willing to do so.

Leading Welshman at the moment is Stephen Dodd, followed by Bradley Dredge. But they have to wait to see if they are exempt from qualifying – players from 18 other countries are ahead of Dodd.

There was a similar situation for Scotland and Wales last year, but the withdrawals of Vijay Singh and Mike Weir meant Fiji and Canada were among the non-exempt nations and so Alastair Forsyth and Scott Drummond and Phillip Price and Dredge went directly through to Seville.

As the host nation Portugal do not have to qualify. Their leading player is Jose-Filipe Lima, who switched his citizenship from French to Portuguese last year, and as he would not qualify based on his current world ranking the number of teams coming through the qualifying tournaments will be reduced by one.

There is also the matter of former European Tour player Stephen Ames. He has represented Trinidad and Tobago in the past and has played with his brother Robert, but on the US Tour he is now listed as Canadian.

As things stand, the 18 qualified nations are: USA, Fiji, South Africa, Spain, Australia, Argentina, Ireland, England, New Zealand, Denmark, Scotland, Canada, Trinidad & Tobago, Sweden, Korea, Japan, Germany, France.