Darren Clarke has been handed a boost in his bid to secure a place in Colin Montgomerie’s European Ryder Cup side (Europe 4/7, USA 7/4, Tie 9/1 – Ryder Cup) later this year as he has been invited to the USPGA Championship for the second year running.

The 41-year-old Northern Irishman is down in 21st position on the points table and is aware that a positive outcome at this week’s 3 Irish Open in Killarney (Clarke 35/1 Tournament Outright) could see him move into the crucial top-nine places.

However, Clarke has now been handed another opportunity for Ryder Cup points with an invite to feature at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin for the USPGA Championship.

Clarke is already one of Montgomerie’s vice-captains for the battle against the United States at Celtic Manor in the first weekend of October, but he desperately wants to be playing.

“Yes I will play if I qualify,” said Clarke.

“I think Monty will want me to if I do. I think Thomas and Paul will too. There’s no question about that. If I do play well in the events I have left I possibly could give him a bigger headache. We shall see.

“We spoke at length about it and Monty said that he wants me there one way or the other.

“Right now as it stands I’m outside the team and I’m delighted to be part of his backroom staff.”

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Darren Clarke believes he is capable of cutting out the errors that have cost him this season as the Ulsterman (25/1 in the tournament betting) looks for his first win since 2008 at the Maybank Malaysian Open.

The 41-year-old has made a decent start to the season with two top-ten finishes at the Joburg Open and the Avantha Masters in his last outing.

However, the Ryder Cup (Europe 8/11 to win in the golf betting) star has failed to finish higher up the leaderboard thanks to a couple of poor final rounds.

Clarke looked to be on course to be challenging for the Avantha Masters title before a error-strewn final round cost him, must as it had done in Dubai the week before.

Clarke (8/1 to be the top European in Malaysia) is now targeting his first tournament success since he triumphant at the KLM Open in Holland in August 2008.

“I am not concerned by my lack of practice, I know what I am doing. But I need to start to eliminate those errors,” said Clarke.

“I have played really well and hit the ball the way I wanted to for the most part in every tournament I have played this year.”

With an unspectacular field against him Clarke has been made the fourth favourite by Betfred.com to claim the Malaysian Open title as he looks to deny the 8/1 pre-tournament favourite Tongchai Jaidee of winning his third title at the event.

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