From Brian Keogh in Detroit

Darren Clarke suffered a massive blow to his Ryder Cup chances when he crashed out of the US PGA at Valhalla.

But even though the Ulsterman confessed that he wouldn't pick himself, former US skipper Tom Lehman has urged Nick Faldo to hand Clarke a wildcard.

Five-time Ryder Cup hero Clarke, who turns 40 next Thursday, hit a second round 76 to finish on 11 over par and now has just the KLM Open and the Johnnie Walker Championship at Gleneagles to convince Faldo that he deserves a sixth cap.

Clarke said: "Would I pick me? At the moment, probably not unless I do something pretty good in those last couple of tournaments. That is a realistic and honest view, at the moment I probably wouldn’t.

"It didn’t feel as if I played that badly at all but that is Major Championship golf, it’s on the edge between getting good results and bad results and unfortunately things didn’t go my way.

"I had a cold putter all week and everybody is going to make mistakes around here and you have to make those five or six footers to make par."

Lehman played both rounds with Clarke and while he hit a 70 to finish seven shots better than the Irish star on four over, he felt that Clarke played even better.

The American said: "His game is really good and he is rolling it beautifully and hitting it really solid. I thought he played way better than I did.

"Part of the Ryder Cup is history and pairings and the whole friendship thing and Darren brings a lot more to the table than just a good golf game. If I was in Nick Faldo's shoes I wouldn't even think twice about picking him.

"He got unlucky for two days but especially today. It became a bit of a running joke throughout the day. How broad are your shoulders. He kept getting what I considered to be unfortunate bounces and bad bounces. Bad breaks.”

Five over starting the day, Clarke went out on the back nine and was level par for the day when he took a triple bogey seven at the 18th when he took five shots to get up and down from greenside sand

He explained: "I didn’t think I played that badly at all this week, far from it, far from it. I was level par through seven holes and then made a triple bogey seven on 18 from nowhere.

"My game is okay but my scores don’t reflect that. I have tried by best and that's all I will do in the two tournaments I have left and see where that leaves me."