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LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Before today’s exchange, Ryder Cup captains Paul Azinger and Nick Faldo squared off in several other made-for-TV exhibitions in the run-up to this weekend’s Ryder Cup matches. That included a golf match, a fly-fishing competition and a game of poker. Faldo won in the river and on the river. Azinger won on the course.
“The one that really mattered...,” said Captain America. “And of course I win that one. We all knew that would probably happen, right?”
Trading barbs has been an ongoing match between Azinger and Faldo for years now. That is no secret, unlike everything you’d like to know two days before the start to a Ryder Cup.
That includes team strategy, as ‘Zinger was quick to point out Wednesday. “I can’t be specific about anything that we’re doing at this point,” Azinger said.
“It’s no big deal. There’s no great secrets. But I came in here with a concept,” he said, pausing, then smiling. “It’s a secret.”
Azinger furthered that theme later in his press conference, saying he thought the Europeans had a couple spies, or secret agents, following the U.S. team around during practice rounds.
When notified of that charge, Faldo acted surprised, then also used the “S” word – more than one, actually.
“My spies are so secret,” Faldo said, “I don’t even know who my spies are.”
Secrets and spies and no Tiger, oh my!
Coincidentally, the most popular spy Wednesday at Valhalla (aka “The Secret Garden”) was a television camera that caught a close-up shot of a piece of paper in Faldo’s hands with groups of initials scribbled on it.
Adjacent at the top of the paper were the initials SG (Sergio Garcia) and LW (Lee Westwood), along with PH (Padraig Harrington) and RK (Robert Karlsson), perhaps the lead groups for Friday’s opening foursomes.
Below that was a line with JR (Justin Rose), IP (Ian Poulter), GMC (Graeme McDowell) and PC (Paul Casey), followed by another line with OW (Oliver Wilson), SH (Soren Hansen) and MAJ (Miguel Angel Jimenez). Missing only were the initials HS (Henrik Stenson), which may have been covered by Faldo’s finger.
“He’s on the other side of the piece of paper,” joked Faldo, who was hammered on the topic throughout his press conference by members of the British media. “The Swedes do it the other way around.”
At one point, Faldo removed what was presumed to be his famed piece of paper from his back pocket and lifted it in the air, and though he didn’t flip the paper over to prove his claim, Faldo remained flippant.
He called the paper a lunch list. He said he hadn’t put numbers next to the names yet, thereby making such information useless. He also said they were actually “tomorrow’s pairings,” as in for Thursday’s practice round.
Ever the comedian, Faldo was then asked what he thought was the biggest impact he could have on the matches as a captain.
“The biggest thing I can do is keep things secret, I feel,” he said. “That’s the biggest impact.”
Wednesday afternoon, the Junior Ryder Cup teams from the United States and Europe teed off in a nine-hole “friendship” match. A CIA vs. FBI tussle in an “intelligence” match would have been more fitting. (The winner would get Tiger Woods’ cell phone number.)
When asked after his press conference if he was still planning on pairing Kentuckians J.B. Holmes and Kenny Perry and sending them out in the first group Friday, Azinger said “I’m leaning that way, yeah.” Reporters pushed him to make a guarantee, but Azinger didn’t necessarily give in.
He said he really liked the pairing. He said if he did pair Holmes and Perry, they would go off first Friday. He even said that if he didn’t go ahead with that plan, he would probably earn criticism. An American reporter replied that the media would also be criticized for writing it.
“I can lie,” Azinger said, wryly. “I don’t have to tell the press the truth.”
A British journalist then asked Azinger if he thought it was “fair” to use the press to possibly psyche out Faldo and the European side.
Azinger snarled, questioning the reporter’s use of the word “fair.”
You know what they say. All’s fair in love and Valhalla.
“I think Paul is trying to pull a poker move here. So we will see,” Faldo said, when asked about the Holmes-Perry situation. “If that happens, that happens.”
At a Ryder Cup, this is how things happen.
Posted: 9/17/2008
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