Clarke selected Lee Westwood, Martin Kaymer and Thomas Pieters to complete his team to defend the trophy at Hazeltine next month, with world No 20 Knox missing out despite being ranked higher than all three.
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The in-form Pieters’ inclusion comes at the expense of Scotland’s Russell Knox, who finished 10th in qualifying and 0.04 points ahead of the Belgian.
With five rookies filling the nine automatic qualifying places, Clarke wanted to balance the team with old heads at Hazeltine.
The 43-year-old’s last victory came in Indonesia in April 2015, but he was joint second behind Willett at Augusta National and has recorded four other top-15 finishes from a limited schedule. His win at a WGC event in Shanghai past year didn’t count toward Ryder Cup qualification because he wasn’t a member of the European Tour at that stage.
On Sunday, Pieters closed with 65, including three birdies in a row to finish, to win his third European Tour event in the past 12 months. Pieters was grouped with Clarke for the first two rounds.
“I’ve got into contention in all of the big tournaments at some stage, really, even though a couple I haven’t finished off like the PGA at Wentworth and the U.S. Open, I’ve been in the second to last group going out the last day, obviously played well at the Masters”.
“If it was Shane that turned up in Denmark and if it was him who was winning the tournament and not Thomas Pieters, he would have forced his way into the team at the end of it”.
Russell Knox says he has no regrets about his approach to trying to qualify for Europe’s Ryder Cup team after missing out on a captain’s pick.
“This will be his 10th appearance. But if he needs to pull me to one side and have a chat and ask me my thoughts, I’m happy to do that; I can fall back on ten Ryder Cups”.
“He’s a man I have a huge amount of trust and belief in”. “I can’t wait to tee it up and give it 110 per cent”.
Pieters was boosted primarily by his form in recent weeks.
Knox said: “It’s certainly motivated me for the next three weeks, that’s for sure”.
Clarke said they were “very obvious” selections. “Graeme McDowell and Luke Donald, in terms of experience, could have been in the three, but those two haven’t quite been on top of their own games”.
“Last week I played with Thomas Pieters (in Denmark) and Thomas knew why I was playing with him”.
Clarke described breaking the news to Knox on Monday as the hardest phone call he’s ever had to make.
“Russell has played unbelievably well over the qualification period. I am proud of this team and have no worries about them at all”.
“It was always tough to pick another rookie, unless he has something very special and I think Thomas has something very special, because he hits the ball so far”, said the German.
“But given his form, I found it impossible to leave Thomas out”.
He said: “The past few days have been some of the toughest of my golfing career but it’s been wonderful to see the team take shape”. 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.
Already established as a betting favorite in Las Vegas despite having lost eight of the last 10 Ryder Cups, the US team can change drastically depending on what Love does with his picks.
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“He just sent me a message before we went on air, saying: ‘Testing, testing, is your phone off?’ That’s why I was laughing”.
