But, with two weeks left in the Ryder Cup race, the 34-year-old Dane is only £213 ahead of German Martin Kaymer in the tenth and last automatic spot.

Both are hoping to earn a debut and both are at the KLM Open, which was set to start in Holland today.

Hansen has not had a top-60 finish in his last four starts – including, of course, the final two majors of the season – but gave his confidence a much-needed boost on Monday when he had a putt for a 59 in a company day for one of his sponsors.

"It was from 30 feet and I hit it way too hard and three-putted," he said. "These two weeks are going to be interesting. I was really hoping to get the job done before now, but the team is looking strong and that's the most important thing.

"At the end of the day, I just hope I can be a part of it.

"This is what we play for, and after a tough time the last few weeks – I lost my swing in the wind at The Open at Birkdale and struggled to get it back – I honestly feel good about my game again."

European captain Nick Faldo has seven of his 12 players down on his team sheet in Padraig Harrington, Lee Westwood, Sergio Garcia, Henrik Stenson, Robert Karlsson, Miguel Angel Jimenez and Graeme McDowell.

Justin Rose is next on the points list, £45,555 ahead of Oliver Wilson, but that is a small enough margin to have brought him back from the States this week and possibly next week to try to secure his first cap.

In turn, Wilson is less than £2500 ahead of Hansen, so there are three automatic places up for grabs – and who knows what Faldo is thinking as regards the two wild cards he hands out on Sunday week after the completion of the Johnnie Walker Championship at Gleneagles?

Wilson, Hansen and Kaymer are probably telling themselves they need to be in the top ten with Colin Montgomerie, Paul Casey, Open runner-up Ian Poulter, Darren Clarke and European Open champion Ross Fisher all needing a pick as things stand.

Meanwhile, on the US Tour, Vijay Singh has blasted the PGA of America for the severity of the greens at the US PGA Championship at Oakland Hills two weeks ago.

Singh went into the year's final major on the back of a victory at the previous weekend's WGC-Bridgestone Invitational but missed the cut at Oakland Hills and had long departed the Detroit course by the time Padraig Harrington completed his two-stroke victory.

"The PGA was one of the best we play tee to green but the greens were a disgrace on a course that good," he said.

"I think if the members were to play at the speed of the greens we played, they'd all quit. There would not be any members left.

"I don't know what the PGA was going for. I don't think they should have another golf tournament there if the greens are like that.

"Get someone to redesign the green, they were a disaster."

Having also missed last week's cut in the Wyndham Championship at Sedgefield in Greensboro, North Carolina, the 45-year-old insisted he feels much more comfortable at this week's Barclays tournament playing a composite 7319-yard, par-71 course featuring the best 18 holes at Ridgewood Country Club's three AW Tillinghast-designed nine-hole layouts.

"We are playing a good golf course," added Singh.

"Last week was okay, a decent golf course but this is what all the players really look forward to.

"Playing a course of this nature, the greens are smallish – you have to know what side of the green to hit at – but they are by no means flat. They are very playable.

"Players enjoy playing golf courses like this. I've never heard anybody say anything negative about this course. You have to bring the whole package here to play well, you can't just come here and think you are going to hit the ball a long way and score well."