Sunday, captain Colin Montgomerie had to make three wild card picks to fill out his 12-man European Ryder Cup Team roster. Paul Casey, ranked 8th in the world, and Justin Rose, ranked 23rd, were the biggest names left off the team. While Casey didn’t complain or even blame the strange qualifying system, Rose wound up and took a pretty big shot at Montgomerie’s three wild card choices.

“I thought I had as good as shot as anyone,” said Rose. “I don’t think many people would have gone with those three.” The three Monty did pick all have higher world rankings than Rose — England’s Luke Donald (#11), Italy’s Edoardo Molinari (#15), and Ireland’s Padraig Harrington (#19) — and Monty has said that if Lee Westwood isn’t healthy enough to play, Rose will get his spot.  While Rose was the PGA Tour’s hottest golfer earlier this summer, winning two tournaments in a one-month span with another top 10 finish in between, he missed the cut at both The British Open and The PGA Championship.

Casey took a much different tact:

Europe, they’ve got an unbelievable team. I wish them the best for the match, simple as that. I’m not going to stand here and sort of plead a case for why I should be on the team. It’s done and dusted. I tried my hardest and I didn’t make it. … Coming off last year being injured, you’re not making any points. Really last year hurt my ability to qualify automatically for the team.

Donald, one of the three wild card picks, had no problem criticizing the qualification process:

When a player ranked in the top 10 in the world doesn’t make the team, maybe there’s something wrong with the system. … Paul Casey … finished (third) at the British Open, nearly top 10 at the PGA, great match-play record, to see him left off the team, it was disappointing.

Another wild card pick, Padraig Harrington, disagrees and thinks the qualifications system is perfectly fair:

The system’s very good. I knew the system was fair. We knew it at the start of the year. No matter what you say, you can qualify for the team. There’s no doubt myself and Paul, Justin and Luke, we didn’t play enough in Europe to make it on the team automatically.

Still, of the players who automatically qualified four have lower world rankings than Rose: England’s Ross Fisher (#26), Italy’s Francesco Molinari (#35), Spain’s Miguel Angel Jimenez (#38), and Sweden’s Peter Hanson (#40). Those guys did well on The European Tour the last few weeks while the big boys were in America trying for the $10 million top prize in the FedExCup playoffs.  It’s hard not to agree with Donald’s criticism that Rose and Casey belong on the team ahead of two of those guys.

“I think golf really is becoming a world game and I understand they want to protect the European Tour, but at the same time, the top guys are going to want to play against the best players in the world no matter what,” said Donald.