EVER PERVERSE, Nick Faldo did exactly what we should have expected of him when he named Paul Casey and, more particularly, Ian Poulter as his two finishing touches to this year's European Ryder Cup side. Faldo's oversized ego was never going to be comfortable choosing someone with Darren Clarke's strength of character. Nor, for similar reasons, did he shed any significant tears over not picking the dreadfully off-form Colin Montgomerie.
"Faldo clearly didn't want anyone in the team room with the potential to rock his boat," points out one former Ryder Cup player who prefers to remain anonymous. "The 2004 Ryder Cup was all about Monty and his divorce; 2006 at the K Club was all about
Darren and the tragic death of his wife; Nick wants Valhalla to be all about him."
Harsh words, but even a cursory review of Faldo's career reveals the extraordinary level of self-absorption that made the six-time major champion one of the most unpopular players of his or any other generation. It is perfectly logical that he prefers to be surrounded by those too young to remember any of the many and various slights felt by his direct contemporaries. As is his reluctance to add a second vice-captain alongside Jose Maria Olazabal. As ever, it's Nick's way or the highway.
Still, as captain, Faldo has every right to march into the biennial battle at the head of his own army. How else do we justify the at least mildly shocking choice of his pal Poulter – a man who last broke 68 as long ago as January – over Clarke, who has won two tournaments in the last four months? And never mind the sturdy claims of the US-based Swede, Carl Pettersson, who lifted his third PGA Tour title, the Wyndham Classic, only three weeks ago.
Even mildly inquiring minds have found it hard to swallow the notion that there had been no communication between Faldo and Poulter over whether or not the latter should play in the last qualifying event at Gleneagles. This is Ian Poulter we're talking about, a man who spent much of the last two years loudly and publicly proclaiming his apparently burning desire to be a part of the Ryder Cup team. For him to give up a final chance to qualify automatically (he required a top-four finish) without some sort of guarantee that a captain's pick was already his didn't exactly ring true.
Let's assume for a moment that Faldo and Poulter did chat – something both have vehemently denied. Surely it would have been smarter for the European skipper to tell his young friend and fan that, while his spot on the team was safe, he should still fly to Scotland. Once there, he could play hard in an effort to finish better than fifth, thereby allowing Faldo the luxury of choosing elsewhere. That scenario makes more sense than the one played out before a golf world that was surely rolling its collective eyes skyward.
After announcing his picks, a typically rambling press conference did nothing to dispel the widely held notion that Faldo had something significant to hide. Not only was the verbally challenged Englishman (he's really a television commentator?) obviously defensive in his responses, he noticeably failed to complete even one sentence and didn't once come close to directly answering any of the more pointed Poulter-related questions fired his way. It was a dreadful and incoherent performance, one rooted in the bad old days of the 1980s and 90s when his relationship with the media was rarely less than fractious.
Anyway, for all the doubts surrounding this tawdry episode – perhaps significantly, European Tour chief executive George O'Grady had a face like thunder throughout the televised briefing – Faldo's decision was at least taken from a position of competitive strength. The same can hardly be said for the ordeal American captain Paul Azinger was put through less than 48 hours later.
With four picks to make, the former USPGA champion had only an embarrassment of poverty to choose from. So, while it was possible to construct a case of sorts for as many as a dozen of Uncle Sam's nephews, it is also a fact that it didn't matter which four Azinger pulled from his baseball cap. America's increasingly beleaguered side was always going to look no more than mediocre.
In the end, Azinger went for Chad Campbell (a great ball striker and a terrible putter), Steve Stricker (a great putter and a terrible ball striker), JB Holmes (a man who apparently breaks a lot of wind but who couldn't break 80 in the final round of the recent USPGA Championship) and Hunter Mahan (whose enthusiasm for the Ryder Cup was recently encapsulated by his notion that the players are no more than "slaves" for the week). Woo, scary!
Of course, the fact that his side appears to be so superior to the opposition is Faldo's ace-in-the-hole when it comes to riding any lingering criticism of his decision to ignore the claims of Clarke, Pettersson and, at a stretch, those of Monty. Two weeks from now, should the European team have swept to a fourth successive triumph, few will care who or what Faldo picked in the run-up to victory.
In that respect, any captain's legacy is always easy to identify. If the team wins he is a hero; if it loses, he is cast as an idiot. The mind always goes back to 1997 at Valderrama. Having prepared in typically assiduous fashion, US skipper Tom Kite could only watch in wonder as his counterpart, Seve Ballesteros, made almost every mistake known to man yet still emerged victorious. It was an object – or in Kite's case, abject – lesson in Ryder Cup realities. At the end of three days, only one thing really matters: winning. And Faldo, the record points scorer in the matches with 25, knows that simple fact better than anyone.
