Nick Faldo should be congratulated . . . he’s managed to make one of the craziest decisions by a European captain in 27 years at The Ryder Cup.

Not since 1981, when Seve Ballesteros was left out of the team at Walton Heath, has any European player had to absorb a punch in the solar plexus as sickening as that dealt to Darren Clarke yesterday.

Faldo’s decision to overlook Clarke, who won his second tournament in five months in Holland last Sunday, really put the ‘wild’ into his wild card choices for Valhalla . . . fellow Englishmen Ian Poulter and Paul Casey.

Typically, Clarke took a telephone call from the captain with dignity. “Nick rang me after my last round at Gleneagles to say that I wasn’t going to be one of his picks and I simply wished him all the best,” he said.

Faldo failed to make contact with just two of the men who had been in the running for a place on the team – Wild Card Casey, who was on a flight home from the USA, and Colin Montgomerie, who the captain said “was either shopping or watching a football match on TV.”

Clarke went on: “Obviously I’m disappointed but I have dealt with much worse and it will make me all the more determined to make the team that will play in Wales next time.

“There was a qualifying period and I didn't make it automatically, so you will not hear any sour grapes from me.

“I fully respect the captain’s decision and I will be supporting the team from wherever I am,” added the Ulsterman, who battled back from 229th in the world last January to 56th now, a remarkable rise given the upheaval in his personal life.

Clarke himself might have been diplomatic, but the mood in Irish golf was best summed up by one authoritative figure on the world's professional tours when he said: “Faldo needs his head examined.”

Given Clarke’s astonishing impact on the 2006 Ryder Cup six weeks after his wife Heather had passed away, one can only share his chagrin as the the Ulsterman has settled nicely into the role of single parent of two young boys and is playing with all the authority of old.

Some might congratulate Faldo for his lateral thinking in this instance . . . though one suspects the vast majority of them will be American.

Few would argue with Casey's nomination on grounds of form or his reputation as one of the most formidable match-players in the world – he’d have been a good second pick after Clarke,

However, one has to read very deep between the lines to come up with any logical explanation for Poulter's selection.

Only if you accept that Faldo wishes to dominate his team room like a colossus does the snub to Clarke make any possible sense.

Of all the players in contention for this team, few would suffer fools or foolish decisions less gladly than the 40-year-old Northern Irishman. Okay, Colin Montgomerie would stand as large as any captain in the European locker room but the case for his selection had been hopelessly undermined by Monty's abject form this season. So for the first time since 1937, there won’t be a Scot at The Ryder Cup.

As a triple-major champion, Padraig Harrington carries with him a new authority to Valderrama and Faldo said: “I think he is underplaying the importance that he is now going to be playing, the mantle he takes as a senior player along with Lee Westwood and Sergio.”

No doubt, Harrington is a major figure but, by nature, he’d not be potentially as confrontational as Clarke.

Neither, one suspects, would the Ulsterman's close friend and regular Ryder Cup partner Lee Westwood nor Sergio Garcia, who displayed his unwavering loyalty to his captain with that salute on the 18th green at The Barclays Championship last Sunday week.

Faldo insists he watched Clarke swoop to victory in The KLM Open last Sunday week live on the Golf Channel in the States, describing it as “very impressive . . . we were looking at the money list to see where he had pushed himself up to and he was right there.”

Yet Clarke's outstanding form, nor his vast catalogue of Ryder Cup experiences, were never going to be enough. Faldo’s head had been turned by Poulter’s display in finishing second to Harrington at The Open and it really didn't matter how well the Irishman played in Holland.

Poulter said he was “speechless” when Faldo phoned to tell him the news yesterday evening.

So it probably was the first time Poulter found himself on the same wavelength as the majority of his fellow professionals on the European Tour since his appalling decision last Monday not to come to Gleneagles and fight for a place on the Ryder Cup team.

Outlining the flimsiest of scheduling reasons, Poulter said he’d stay in the USA to play the Deutsche Bank Championship to complete the 15 tournaments required to maintain full membership of the PGA Tour. What rubbish!

At least when Andrew Coltart was plucked from obscurity by Mark James for the 1999 Ryder Cup at Brookline, the Scotsman had tried his best to qualify.

Ironically, Poulter and Casey both missed the cut at The Deutsche Bank. Unlike Clarke, neither of them has managed to win this season – Casey's last victory was 50 tournaments ago at the Abu Dhabi Championship, while Poulter's drawn a blank in 22 events going back to last winter’s win at Japan's Dunlop Phoenix.

Indeed, Poulter hasn't shot lower than the 67 he posted in Abu Dhabi this January, where he delivered his only other top-10 finish of 2008.

Rarely has a 15-foot putt been of such value to a player as the one Poulter impressively played for par at Royal Birkdale's 18th hole. In fairness, he showed commendable bottle in doing so, as he believed it was for victory or a play-off at The Open.

“I’ve been watching these guys through the summer and, obviously, Ian is a very determined guy. I love his attitude and what he did at The Open Championship. He played the back nine that Sunday with the intention and the emotion to win.”

Meanwhile, a disappointed Paul McGinley yesterday waved farewell to his chances of playing at the Ryder Cup, saying: “I needed to win here to have any chance. I wish there was another month to go because I'm in good form. It's just too little, too late.”

Faldo shot down McGinley's chances of being reinstated as vice-captain.