Two-time US Open champion Lee Janzen has been left out of the United States team for next month's Presidents Cup.

Janzen (33), was among a number of high-profile Americans who failed to win a place in the team event, which pits the best 12 players from the United States against the rest of the world, excluding Europe.

The third edition of the Presidents Cup will take place at Royal Melbourne in Australia between December 11th-13th, the first time the Ryder Cup-style match will be staged outside the US.

The top 10 American money earners on this year's PGA Tour qualified automatically for the team, while the remaining two were selected by non-playing captain Jack Nicklaus.

Nicklaus yesterday announced he had chosen Fred Couples and John Huston as his wild-cards after they finished 11th and 12th on the end of season list.

David Duval, Tiger Woods, Jim Furyk, Justin Leonard, Phil Mickelson, Davis Love, Mark O'Meara, Hal Sutton, Scott Hoch and Mark Calcavecchia claimed the automatic berths.

Nicklaus said it was difficult to omit Janzen, who finished 22nd on the list, but pointed out that a number of top players, including Tom Watson, Payne Stewart, John Cook and John Daly, had also missed out.

"I knew Lee hadn't been playing well lately, but I still would have liked to have him on the team," Nicklaus said.

"He's the US Open champion, he's been a great competitor, but he just didn't play well enough to do it."

The 10 automatic berths for the international team were determined by current world rankings. They went to: Ernie Els (South Africa), Nick Price (Zimbabwe), Vijay Singh (Fiji), Greg Norman (Australia), Steve Elkington (Australia), Stuart Appleby (Australia), Carlos Franco (Paraguay), Shigeki Maruyama (Japan), Craig Parry (Australia) and Joe Ozaki (Japan).

The two wild-card berths, selected by Australia's five-time British Open champion Peter Thomson, went to Frank Nobilo and Greg Turner, both of New Zealand.