On Tuesday, European captain Darren Clarke named Lee Westwood, Martin Kaymer and Thomas Pieters as his three wildcard selections.
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With rookies filling five of the nine automatic qualifying places – albeit one of them being Masters champion Willett – Clarke had made no secret of the fact that he wanted to “balance the team” with experienced players.
Clarke, with five debutants on his team already as automatic qualifiers, did draw on some further experience as he revealed his three wildcards to take on Davis Love III’s US outfit, naming Lee Westwood for his tenth Ryder Cup appearance and two-time major champion Martin Kaymer.
Russell Knox misses out despite being the highest-ranked European of the non-qualifiers, rising to world No 20 following his win at the Travelers Championship earlier this month.
Pieters is another rookie, and one of the form players in European golf after winning the Made in Denmark tournament last week – during which the Belgian played alongside Clarke for the first two rounds – and finishing fourth in the Olympics.
Knox said that when he got Clarke’s call on Monday night “it was obvious within one second that it wasn’t going to be good news for me”.
That points towards the likes of Lee Westwood and Martin Kaymer, who finished 13th and 14th on the world points list respectively, or perhaps even Francesco Molinari, Graeme McDowell or Luke Donald, who were 18th, 19th and 21st.
Knox is now seventh in the FedEx Cup standings on the PGA Tour – Henrik Stenson is the next highest European at 21st – and therefore in contention to win the overall title and United States dollars 10million bonus at the Tour Championship, which finishes just five days before plays gets under way at Hazeltine.
Martin Kaymer won the 2010 U.S. PGA Championship and 2014 U.S. Open and has featured in the last three Ryder Cups.
DEFIANT Russell Knox revealed he’s on a mission to prove Darren Clarke wrong after his Ryder Cup snub. It’s a bold move and Clarke can expect severe criticism for going with experience ahead form if Europe lose.
“I think Thomas is a great young talent”.
Masters champions Danny Willett, Chris Wood, Rafa Cabrera-Bello, Andy Sullivan and Matt Fitzpatrick also will sample golf’s biggest team event for the first time.
“Then it came down to the choice between Russell Knox and Thomas Pieters”. Its last major event was the 2009 PGA Championship, while it has also staged the men’s and women’s US Opens. “There were a few other contenders I was thinking about as well but Thomas went out and shot one of the finest 62s I have ever witnessed, and made it look very easy”.
Knox, however, hoped to use the disappointment of missing out to his advantage in the FedEx Cup with the 31-year-old now sitting seventh in the standings ahead of the last three events.
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All this meant that Clarke found it very hard to break the news to the Scot. “I feel like I deserve to be on the team, but it wasn’t my call, obviously”.
