Clarke opted for the experienced Lee Westwood and Martin Kaymer and the in-form Belgian Thomas Pieters as his three wildcard picks. It was his second PGA Tour victory of the 2016 season, but at No. 10 on the World Points list, he was one slot shy of automatically qualifying.
Advertisement
Five of the nine automatic selections, Danny Willett, Chris Wood, Andy Sullivan, Rafa Cabrera-Bello and Matt Fitzpatrick, are Ryder Cup rookies so Clarke may decide to balance his 12-man team by going for experience with his wildcards.
Westwood and Kaymer had always been favourites to be selected and finished 13th and 14th on the world points list respectively, with Westwood securing a 10th consecutive appearance in the event and Kaymer a fourth. Clarke said on Tuesday in a press conference that it came down to Pieters (who won last week in Denmark) and Russell Knox (who won a few weeks ago at the Travelers Championship).
Pieters has had a great run of late, winning the Made in Denmark last week, finishing second at the D+D REAL Czech Masters, and fourth at the Olympics.
Rose believes the 24-year-old Pieters has the type of game that can suit the team format of the Ryder Cup, where players need to adapt to foursome (alternate shot), fourball and singles play over three days of intense competition.
Englishman Westwood, the former world number one, first played in the biennial team event in 1997 and will be representing Europe for the 10th successive time.
Along with Willett, the final four on that list are all Ryder Cup rookies and they’ll be joined by another first-timer as Clarke surprisingly selected Belgium’s Thomas Pieters, who actually nearly made this Ryder Cup team on merit alone. Russell has played unbelievably well over the qualification period.
According to Clarke, he is “massively proud” of his team and they are all “hungry for success”.
Pieters started the final round one shot behind the 43-year-old Dredge, who finished runner-up at Himmerland for the second time.
“Now instead of saying ‘OK, you two go play together, ‘ we can give players a reason they’re paired”.
“But, given his form, I found it impossible to leave Thomas out”.
The real question is why Clarke chose Pieters over Russell Knox.
But Knox opted to rest up to prepare for the FedEx series – where he is now sitting seventh and very much in the hunt to win – believing he already had a solid case for a wild card.
Clarke admitted he lost sleep over the wild-card decisions, calling the phone call he had to make to Knox “probably one of the toughest phone calls I’ve ever had to make”.
“I know Darren well and he is not sleeping much right now”, Love said in a teleconference on Monday.
“Of course I feel like I deserve to be there and should be playing but I’m not, so I have to respect the decision that’s been made”.
Advertisement
“It’s hard to be a rookie on home soil when you have the crowd cheering for you, but to be a rookie in the States and be up against it, the crowd as well as the team, it’s a little extra”.
