Russell braced for Ryder D-Day...

RUSSELL KNOX won’t sulk in the corner if he doesn’t earn a Ryder Cup ‘wildcard’ pick next Tuesday.

The Scot is returning to competition at this week’s Barclays Championship New York’s Long Island for a first time since capturing the Travelers Championship.

However, with the cut-off for automatic European Team selection for those PGA Tour-based Europeans ending at last week’s Wyndham Championship, Knox has finished one place outside of automatically qualifying for Darren Clarke’s team.

It’s meant Knox will need to be one of Clarke’s three captain’s picks if he’s to make his Ryder Cup debut next month at Hazeltine.

“It’s important to me but it’s not the end of the world. If he chooses not to pick me, I’m not going to sulk in the corner,” he said

“I feel I’ve done all I could do. I made the commitment to join the European Tour so I was eligible. I played well. So I’ve made my case. Hopefully it’s enough.”

If Clarke does select Knox it will mean a record-equalling number of six rookies in the European Team and a number matching the number of rookies Colin Montgomerie had in 2010 at Celtic Manor.

But Knox has no qualms being called a rookie despite being ranked well inside the top-20 on the World Ranking courtesy of two PGA Tour counting victories this year.

He added: “If I’m picked, I’ll feel like 10 people qualified and Darren picked two people.”