Europe’s Ryder Cup captain Darren Clarke has named Lee Westwood, Martin Kaymer and Thomas Pieters as his three captain’s picks for the match against the USA, which gets under way at Hazeltine, Minnesota in a month’s time.
Westwood will be making his 10th consecutive Ryder Cup appearance while Kaymer earns his fourth straight cap as Clarke has opted to add much-needed experience to his line-up. Pieters becomes the sixth rookie in the European team after a sparkling run of form in recent weeks, finishing fourth at the Olympic Games before just missing out on successfully defending his Czech Masters title.
The big-hitting Belgian won last week’s Made In Denmark, where he shot 62 playing alongside Clarke in the opening round. That performance obviously tipped the balance in his favour ahead of Scot Russell Knox, who misses out despite being the highest-ranked European of the non-qualifiers. Knox is now in the world’s top 20 following his win at the Travelers Championship earlier this month but will have to wait at least another two years before making his Ryder Cup debut. Luke Donald has also been omitted.
Despite having only won one of the last seven, the USA are a general 8/13 to regain the trophy in 2016 with Europe priced up at 2/1 with Bwin.
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Europe lead the USA 10-7 in head-to-heads since the current teams and format was adopted in 1979 but Europe’s team this year looks very inexperienced in comparision to their hosts. American crowds can be hostile to visiting teams and it’s expected that Europe’s players will be under immense pressure though, hopefully, we’ll never again see the scenes witnessed at the infamous ‘Battle Of Brookline’ in 1999.
USA captain Davis Love III will name his wildcard picks following this week’s Deutsche Bank Championship in Boston with the likes of Jordan Spieth, Dustin Johnson and Phil Mickelson already confirmed among the home team.
