European Ryder Cup skipper Darren Clarke last night insisted that phoning Russell Knox to tell the Scot he would not be part of Team Europe was one of the hardest tasks of his career.

While Martin Kaymer, Lee Westwood and Thomas Pieters were named as Clarke’s three wild cards at Wentworth yesterday, world No 20 Knox was left disappointed as he just missed out on making the 12-man team.

It was a close run thing. Knox, who has been Scotland’s standard bearer on the world stage and has chalked off a brace of PGA Tour wins this season, can feel rightly aggrieved about failing to make the cut.

But Pieters, the Belgian youngster who came with a rousing late run over the past couple of weeks, showed his class to swing the pendulum in his favour as he birdied the last three holes of the Made In Denmark event on Sunday to win by a shot.

That convinced Clarke to give Pieters the nod but the Northern Irishman still had plenty of sympathy for Florida-based Knox.

Clarke himself won twice during the 2008 Ryder Cup qualifying campaign but failed to earn a captain’s pick from Nick Faldo for the match at Valhalla.

He said: “The call was wasn't that long but it was a really, really difficult phone call for me to make, as hard a phone call as I've ever had to make in golfing terms. I knew how much of a disappointment it would be, because in 2008, I won two weeks before the qualifying finished before the team was announced and it was my second win of the year and I didn't get a pick. So I know how much I was hurting at that stage.

“And then to have to call Russell and give him the bad news, I found it really hard. Certainly the hardest part of the job that I've had deal with so far. Some people say he deserved the pick, some will say Thomas Pieters deserved the pick. I as captain have to do make that call on what I believe to be right.

“It's one of those harsh realities. You make a Ryder Cup or you don't make a Ryder Cup. You could go back through all Ryder Cup history and you'll find people in Russell's position that thought they should have been on the team, that could have been on the team but the only way to make sure you're on that team is to finish in the top nine (of the qualifying).”

While the inclusion of Westwood, a long time friend of Clarke and a veteran of nine previous Ryder Cup campaigns, and German ace Kaymer, the hero of the Miracle of Medinah in 2012, were the expected picks, rising star Pieter’s proved his worth with a series of sizzling displays.

Clarke added: I've been on Tour for a long time and I've seen massive talents come along. I played with Tiger Woods when he was an amateur. I've seen Rory up close since he's been a very, very young kid. Thomas Pieters impresses me in the same league as those guys. He has that amount of talent.

"It was a very difficult choice for me to make between Russell and Thomas. A very, very difficult choice. Obviously Russell has played brilliantly well with winning the WGC and then winning the Travelers and knocking in that 12 , 15 foot putt on the last green at Travelers like he did.

"But I went for form. Russell has got form, as well, but Thomas just showed me just a hair, in my opinion, and just a little bit more. I went with my gut feeling.”