Clarke also picked experienced hands Lee Westwood and Martin Kaymer to complete his team of 12, which now includes six Ryder Cup debutants – the most in an away fixture since Brookline in 1999.
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“Let’s make no bones about it, I think it will be tough”, admitted Westwood, who will make his 10th consecutive appearance in the biennial event after being selected along with fellow former world number one Martin Kaymer.
The Dungannon man has named England’s Lee Westwood, Germany’s Martin Kaymer and Belgian Thomas Pieters as his three captain’s selections for the event.
“I’ve always been a huge Thomas Pieters fan since I first witnessed”, said Clarke.
“Narrowing it down to those three wildcards has been a very hard process”.
Europe’s Ryder Cup captain Darren Clarke has finalised his team to face the USA at Hazeltine – with Rory McIlroy among the automatic qualifiers, but no place for Graeme McDowell. They will admit that they have not been on top of their game. At No. 20 in the world, the 31-year-old Knox, who plays predominantly on the PGA Tour and chose not to play in the last two weeks of qualifying, is ranked ahead of Pieters.
They qualified automatically along with four-time major victor Rory McIlroy, British Open champion Henrik Stenson, Olympic gold medalist Justin Rose, and Sergio Garcia.
Darren Clarke, captain of Team Europe, made his three Ryder Cup captains picks today.
“If I’d played there and played well I might have been in exactly the same position as Thomas, but it’s impossible to say what would have happened had I done this or not”, he added.
“Clarke added: “Prior to that there was a few other contenders I was thinking about as well, but he went out and played unbelievably and shot 62”.
One factor that may have counted against Knox in the final decision was his decision to ignore the advice of Clarke and vice captain Ian Poulter, who both got in touch to urge him to play in the Wyndham Championship two weeks ago.
(In fact, he is ranked higher than all three of Clarke’s picks.) But Pieters, 24, who won the 2012 NCAA Championship at Riviera while playing for Mike Small and IL, simply has been the hotter player.
Left off the team was Scotland’s Russell Knox, who has won twice on the PGA Tour this season, including the WGC-HSBC Champions in China and the Travelers Championship the week after the PGA Championship.
“So it came down to the choice between Russell Knox and Thomas Pieters”.
“But Thomas made the game look ridiculously easy (Denmark), has the talent to go right to the top of game”.
“It will be a very tough task”, he said.
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.
” When Darren called me it was obvious within one second that is wasn’t going to be good news. I can’t wait to tee it up and give it 110 per cent”.
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American captain Davis Love will name three of his wildcard selections a week on Sunday, with his final pick not being announced until five days before the tournament begins.
