The list of nine automatic entrants includes five rookies and Clarke made it clear he wanted experience as he chose Westwood and Kaymer.
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The 24-year-old Pieters, a former NCAA champion during his time at IL, will be making his Ryder Cup debut. I haven’t had the chance to have that one-shot lead, because previous year I had a two-shot lead and I kind of closed it out before I got to 18.
Pieters was fourth in the Olympics and second in the defence of his Czech Masters title the following week before winning in Denmark on Sunday.
Yet he ignored the proven Ryder Cup records of candidates such as Graeme McDowell and Luke Donald in favour of current form and no-one fitted the bill better than Pieters, the 24-year-old who won last weekend’s Made In Denmark tournament on the European Tour and just pipped Scotland’s Russell Knox to the twelfth and final place on Clarke’s team.
Joakim Lagergren eventually made a triple bogey on the last hole to drop back to 13 under par, finishing in fifth position, while another player hoping to make the Ryder Cup team, Martin Kaymer, closed with a round of 68 to share sixth place on 11 under par with South African Jaco Van Zyl.
Speaking via video link about what he would bring to the team, Thomas Pieters’ reply was simple.
Clarke said they were “very obvious” selections. After winning the Travelers Championship on the PGA Tour in CT last month – a success which took him on to Fitzpatrick’s heels – the Scot opted not to play in any more qualifying events. Donald hasn’t won a golf tournament since 2013, and outside of a couple second-place finishes at lesser PGA Tour events, he’s been mostly an afterthought internationally over the past couple of seasons. “I found it impossible to leave him off the team”.
With the European team now finalized the countdown is now on until Davis Love’s announcement of his four captain’s picks. But Knox declined, citing his high standing in the FedEx Cup and the need to already play four weeks out of five immediately before the Ryder Cup.
Pieters succeeds 2012 Ryder Cup victor Nicolas Colsaerts as a Belgian representative on the European team and he has already received some tongue-in-cheek advice from his older compatriot. He’s played well this year, he was runner-up at Augusta and week in, week out he has been very solid. It can also be argued that Westwood and Kaymer adequately offset one rookie pick.
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His win at the Himmerland Golf and Spa resort in Farso will surely give Europe’s Ryder Cup captain Darren Clarke plenty to think about.
