Nick got it wrong but that doesn't warrant a kicking

Matthew Norman
22.09.08

The answer to the question that will be posed unceasingly in the days ahead is that there is no definitive answer at all.

You have suspicions, and I have a strong hunch of my own, but there is simply no way of knowing that the Europeans would have retained the Ryder Cup had they been captained by a less prickly, obtuse, weird and capricious character than Nick Faldo, and no point in pretending that there is.

If golf is a game of millimeters, golf captaincy also turns on the tiniest of margins. Whether a decision comes to be seen as genius or imbecility often rests on purest luck, and the pseudo-science of Ryderology – why didn't he pair so and so with thingummy and so on – is a sterile area of study.

So, however, overpowering the temptation to join the kicking party to which Faldo's personality acts as embossed invitation, it should be resisted.

At the very least, it must be recalled that the pre-tournament decision that brought him most ridicule turned out to be his best. Ian Poulter, widely perceived as the Mini Me to Faldo's Dr Evil, was indisputably the star of the team.

The extent to which Faldo alienated the other players by choosing the unlovable Poulter over Darren Clarke isn't quantifiable, but a return of four points our of five certainly is. Poulter was magnificent and made Faldo look very clever.

With that in mind, it behoves us to show humility in considering the seemingly deranged order in which Faldo deployed his men yesterday. When chasing a two-point deficit, conventional wisdom insists that a flying start in the singles is essential.

To this end, every other captain in memory would have sent most of his best players out first, reserving a lone superstar for the closing match in case it was still too close to call. Faldo did the reverse, saving Poulter, Lee Westwood and Padraig Harrington for the final matches and sending only Sergio Garcia out early, in the first match.

To many sound judges, his list read like a suicide note. So it proved. Garcia was crushed by the cocky but gloriously-talented youngster Anthony Kim, and the other Americans took such confidence from watching his lead grow that the bottom three matches were rendered irrelevant.

Had the Spaniard's game suddenly ignited, as it might have done, and brought his team-mates to the boil, we would now be lining up to praise Faldo. It didn't, and for that he will now be buried alive.

It would be fatuously parochial, however, to analyse the result solely in terms of European failings when there were so many American successes.

Kim played sensationally, as did the engagingly-insouciant Boo Weekley and others. "Their golf was fantastic, their shot-making unbelievable," said Faldo, gratifyingly gracious after the event where he had been fractious before it and mumblingly incomprehensible during it.

The Ewe Ess Ehh-chanting crowd may have been as obnoxious as US captain Paul Azinger, who remains what was known to Norman Stanley-Fletcher as a charmless nerk, but the American golfers were generally flawless in both their demeanour and play.

If they also seemed far hungrier than our lot, that was due as much to the desire for revenge after recent European dominance as a fiercely-partisan home crowd. The extent to which Faldo's demotivational skills also played a part is guesswork.

Yet while there are few clear-cut answers, we may indulge in some informed guesswork. Was Faldo an adequate captain? The inspired selection of Poulter apart, probably not. Was his captaincy poor enough to be regarded as the decisive factor in a narrower defeat than the final score suggests?

Given Europe's superiority on paper, very possibly it was. And what lesson should be learned? On this alone we can be unequivocal.

The lesson of the 2008 Ryder Cup is that, in seeking a captain for a uniquely demanding team event, it would be wise to go for a team player rather than the most unyieldingly, individualistic sportsman this country has ever produced.

A world-class cock up

Presumably wild with jealousy at Nick Faldo hogging all the Captain Cock Up headlines, John Lloyd contrived a decision of historic idiocy himself to ensure Britain's relegation from the Davis Cup's world group.

By sparing Andy Murray from a perfectly winnable doubles match on Saturday, he placed a level of pressure on Alex Bogdanovic he knew he couldn't handle.

We know Lloyd knew this because a few years ago, after another wretched capitulation, he said that Bogdanovic should never play Davis Cup tennis again because of his nerves.

And there was the poor chap in the decisive rubber, succumbing to terror after taking the first set against an equivalent nonentity from Austria, and suffering a public humiliation that will haunt him all his days.

Not one iota of blame belongs to Bogdanovic, because he is what he is — an average player with a below-average temperament. Lloyd, meanwhile, should be tormented with shame.

Mammoths won't be shifted

A deafening echo of the Champions League Final resounded over Stamford Bridge yesterday, leaving us none the wiser about where the balance of power lies between the two mammoths of English football.

Apart from lacking the brutal clarification of a penalty shoot-out, this was effectively a re-run of that 1-1 draw in Moscow, with both teams entitled to feel they should have won and thankful they didn't lose.

Once again Manchester United failed to convert early superiority into anything more conclusive than a one-goal lead. And again Chelsea dominated the second-half clearly enough to have scored more than an equalizer.

Whether Phil Scolari will be more relieved at retaining that celebrated unbeaten home record than Alex Ferguson will at avoiding a potentially decisive nine-point deficit is a hard one to call.

More easily predicted is that, for all the lip-service they might pay to the threat posed by Arsenal and Liverpool, both men know they have only one serious rival for the title.

Seldom in memory have two dominant clubs been so uncannily well matched. Nothing more than sporadic slices of luck and the width of a goalpost decided the Premier and Champions Leagues back in May, and on this evidence you could not, to hijack a cliche from politics, put a fag paper between them again.

We are in, it would appear, for another long and attritional two-horse race.