Pavin defends Woods Ryder Cup wildcard

United States team captain Corey Pavin does not believe he has taken a risk in selecting Tiger Woods as one of his wild cards for next month's Ryder Cup at Celtic Manor.

Woods was named on Tuesday by Pavin along with 21-year-old rising star Rickie Fowler, Stewart Cink and Zach Johnson to complete his 12-man line-up as the US look to defend the cup they won at Valhalla in 2008.

On his thought process about Woods Pavin said: "I just watched and waited. I was hoping he would qualify on points, but he didn't and so I waited to see how he played," Woods has come 12th and 11th the last two weeks.

Woods is expected to play with world number four Steve Stricker, with whom he won four out of four at the Presidents Cup in San Francisco 11 months ago.

Cink, last year's Open champion, and Johnson, the 2007 Masters winner, were safe choices, adding experience to a side that already had four rookies.

The Americans will have five debutants compared to Europe's six. Each side has four members of the world's top 10, but Colin Montgomerie's line-up - even without Paul Casey - has eight of the top 20 compared to Pavin's seven.