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The 37th Ryder Cup match is only five days away, and you can almost smell it,
smouldering in the distance. The biennial conflict has yet to kick off but
Nick Faldo, the captain of the European team, has fired the first shot of
the phoney war by claiming that his American counterpart, Paul Azinger, is
already admitting to an error of judgment.
Despite their reputation as old enemies, the two have kept in touch throughout
the build-up, even confiding in each other some of their innermost thoughts.
And, of those, one in particular has interested Faldo. Azinger, he says,
fears that it was a mistake to give Dave Stockton, Raymond Floyd and Olin
Browne jobs on the American backroom team.
Asked whether Azinger’s appointments were an attempt to recreate the
ill-temper-ed atmosphere of the infamous match at Kiawah Island in 1991,
when Stockton was captain and Floyd a wild card, the Englishman delivered a
response that is bound to have an adverse effect on morale in the US team
room. “I think he already regrets it. Maybe regrets isn’t the right word,
but if he did it again . . .
“I don’t think that those guys have brought to his team what he wanted. He’s a
bit like me. He feels that you have to make the decisions yourself, in the
present time. Maybe those captains [Floyd captained the US team in 1989] are
from an old era and this is a new era in the Ryder Cup. Jack Nicklaus made a
few comments and what have you. I think he [Azinger] isn’t sure about that
one.”
Nicklaus, who has been a successful leader of America’s Presidents Cup team,
told Azinger that captaincy is not so much about what you do, as what you
don’t do. When Azinger mentioned to him that he planned to lean heavily on
Stockton, Floyd and Browne, the winner of 18 majors replied without
hesitation: “Get rid of ’em and just go with the guys who play golf.”
All of which plays nicely into the hands of Faldo, who has been roundly
criticised for appointing only one assistant, Jose Maria Olazabal, of Spain.
“This is what I’ve been saying,” says Faldo. “Too many cooks. Crumbs, Olly
and I have played in 18 Ryder Cups between us, and had five captains each,
so you can draw on that experience. At the end of the day, it’s not
overcomplicated. We have guys who are already playing really well, who are
very passionate about it. You just have to say, ‘Well done guys’, get them
on the golf course and let them go.”
The two backroom teams hint at the kind of captaincy each man has in mind.
While Sam Torrance and Bernhard Langer are among the many who say an
assistant is needed to watch every one of the four matches, Faldo admits he
trusts nobody enough to take advice. Just as he ignored the wild-card cases
of Darren Clarke and Colin Montgomerie, so is he keen to ensure that his is
the one voice of experience in the team room.
Azinger, meanwhile, wants friends by his side, men whose opinion he values,
and there is no escaping the echoes of Kiawah Island, where Azinger played
in the second of his four Ryder Cups. Then, as now, the US had endured three
straight matches without a win, and Stockton’s solution was a fiercely
patriotic captaincy that contributed to the most explosive, ill-tempered
exchange in Ryder Cup history. “It took America losing for this to become
really popular,” says Azinger. “By the War on the Shore, people started
freaking.”
The Desert Storm camouflage caps, famously worn by Corey Pavin and Steve Pate
to whip up the South Carolina crowd, were Stockton’s idea. The American
skipper was also accused of gamesmanship when he failed to inform his
opposite number, Bernard Gallacher, that he was withdrawing Pate from the
singles. Europe’s captain later suggested that his team’s walkie-talkie
system had been sabotaged. In 1989, when Floyd was captain, he upset his
opponents at the gala dinner by introducing his team as “the 12 best players
in the world”.
When Tom Watson took charge in 1993, he said he wanted the Ryder Cup to “get
back to what it should be”. “I was offended by that,” says Stockton. “That
Ryder Cup, unlike any other, before or since, elevated the level of public
interest tremendously.” It was in 1991 that Azinger and Chip Beck fell out
with Seve Ballesteros and Olazabal in a Friday foursomes match. The
Spaniards accused their opponents of illegally changing their golf balls,
which led to an argument that reverberated down the years. “The American
team has 11 nice guys . . . and Paul Azinger,” said Ballesteros, who was
later described by Azinger as “the king of gamesmanship”.
The Ryder Cup has defined Azinger’s career. Never the most natural of players,
he had a mediocre record in the event, but he was a dogged and determined
competitor who wound up his opponents, never knew when he was beaten and
detested defeat. With America on the verge of a heavy defeat at The Belfry
in 2002, Azinger holed from a bunker at the 18th hole to prevent Niclas
Fasth securing the point that would have secured victory for Europe. It was
a lost cause, and Azinger knew it, but he did not want to go down as the man
who lost the Ryder Cup for America.
No wonder the American saw off cancer in the 1990s. An emotional character, he
will hope to make the most of what is sure to be a hostile blue-collar crowd
in deepest Kentucky. Don’t be surprised if local boys JB Holmes and Kenny
Perry set the tone as partners in Friday’s morning session.
Faldo, who has played in two PGA and Azinger is well documented, although it
has tended to be only the American who has taken it personally. After
bogeying the last two holes of the 1987 Open, and handing the Claret Jug to
Faldo, he was team will rise to a noisy occasion, reminiscent of Muirfield
Village in 1987, when Europe claimed their first victory on American soil.
“It will be a great atmosphere. They’ll probably get 40,000 people in there,
and it’s quite compact in areas, but we’re playing away and we have to
expect that. 1987 was just unbelievable. We had 2,000 spectators to their
20,000,6 and our 2,000 outsang them. Their 20,000 was what made it special
for us. That’s when we started the ‘Ole, ole, ole’ and ‘Europe, Europe,
Europe’. That’s when it really all started. I know our fans will look after
us.”
The history of animosity between Faldo irked when all the Englishman could say
was “tough luck old boy”. He was also angry about Faldo’s failure to concede
him a six-foot putt at the 1993 Ryder Cup, when the trophy already had been
retained by the US.
Earlier this year, Azinger said that Faldo was a “prick” during his playing
days, and that men of their generation wanted nothing to do with him, which
is probably why the Englishman has made no secret of his preference for
younger players, cool clothing and DJ Spoony in the team room.
Can this be the same man who uttered barely a word to David Gilford when they
played together at Kiawah Island? “It’s totally different,” says Faldo.
“That was 15-20 years ago. I was a player. Now you are in there with the
guys. I’m looking forward to getting in that team room and being part of the
gang. I get on well with this bunch of characters.”
It would be a mistake to portray Faldo and Azinger as sworn enemies. In recent
years, their rivalry has taken on a playful dimension, perhaps more so since
they became captains of their respective continents. Since working together
as commen-tating partners for ABC Sports, they have come to dismiss each
other’s insults as knockabout jibes, with Faldo even agreeing to be
photographed in boxing gloves by way of a taster for this week’s bout.
The question is whether it will finally all boil over in the heat of battle.
Faldo expects the contest to be fiery but believes it will be fair. “It’s
going to be competitive. These guys put their game, their emotions, their
soul on the line that week. It will be fierce: that’s what we expect, that’s
what we want, but we will all uphold this game that we play, simple as that.”
Azinger says that the world wants him and his counterpart to fall out, “but it
ain’t gonna happen”. Ask Faldo about his relationship with the American,
whether they have talked in private about the match, and he is almost
offended by the question. “Are you kidding? We talk about a lot of things.
Just the two of us. Which is good. We’ve got a very good relationship.” It
will be tested to the limit this week, though. So far, Faldo has resisted
the temptation to hit back at Azinger’s recent profanity, suggesting instead
that he owes him one below the belt. By revealing the American’s
insecurities on the eve of the match, he has delivered it, and it may not be
the last. Number of American rookies. There have not been so many US
debutants since 1987 when they first lost on home soil. There are four on
the European side – Justin Rose, Oliver Wilson, Soren Hansen and Graeme
McDowell
