Expect fire from the feisty Zinger

JIM FURYK, one of the gentlemen of the American game, is happy Paul Azinger has been confirmed as the new US Ryder Cup team captain.

“He’s a great choice because he’s feisty,” said Furyk.

“He brings a little bit of attitude to a team that I think it needs right now.”

My dictionary explains feisty as “aggressive, spirited, exuberant, touchy”, and on the face of it Furyk seems to have struck the nail on the head.

“The Zinger”, as the Americans like to call him, has exhibited those characteristics on several occasions in the past and it remains to be seen whether he can keep a lid on things, as Tom Lehman did so splendidly at The K Club in September.

Or could it be that he will revive the atmosphere of occasions like the “War on the Shore” at Kiawah Island in 1991 and Brookline in 1996, when the Americans won in less than savoury circumstances?.

Not alone is Furyk correct in stating that Azinger has “attitude” but he also has “history” where the Ryder Cup is concerned.

It will be recalled how enthused and animated Seve Ballesteros became by the event. The real explanation, of course, is that he hated America a lot more than he loved Europe having been shabbily treated by his US rivals when he first went there in the late 1970s.

Seve always regarded the match as the ideal opportunity to make a point. He pulled whatever stroke he deemed necessary and was even accused by the opposition of developing a cough that was heard only when an American was in the act of playing a shot!

Inevitably, this led to acrimony with his rivals, most notably Paul Azinger, whose jingoism invariably came to the fore in Ryder Cup week. So when Ballesteros and his fellow Spaniard Jose-Maria Olazabal got involved in a spat with Azinger and Chip Beck on the first morning of the match at Kiawah Island in 1991, Seve subsequently announced: “The American team has 11 nice guys and Paul Azinger.”

It was a stunning rebuke by any standards.

The man who played in four Ryder Cups, has beaten lymphoma in his right shoulder blade and captured the 1993 US PGA Championship, is as tough as they come. And, of course, he will need to be if he is to redress the imbalance of the last six matches, five of which Europe have won, the last two by embarrassingly wide margins.

The 1991 Ballesteros-Olazabal v Beck-Azinger row arose out of a clear infringement of the rules by the US duo. On the 7th hole, Olazabal noticed that the Americans — contrary to rule — had switched from one make of golf ball to another, thereby changing the compression. The Spaniards brought this to Azinger’s attention at the 9th.

Azinger was livid and failed to control his emotions, so much so, indeed, that he and Beck, three up at the time, lost a succession of holes and were beaten 2 and 1.

Azinger continued to protest his innocence publicly but Peter Jacobsen, himself a US Ryder Cup player who was covering the match for NBC later observed that “I know from talking to Chip and Paul that they both felt so awful that they had broken the rules and in a sense had gotten away with it”.

Azinger will now, so to speak, go head to head with Nick Faldo in Ryder Cup competition for the fifth time. As players, they met four times, with the American winning twice and halving the other two matches. The contest that stands out is the tie in 1993 at The Belfry during which Faldo had a hole in one.

More recently, the rival 2008 captains have worked together as commentators with ABC! Predictably enough, Faldo’s reaction to Azinger’s appointment was low key: “We have respect for each both on and off the course and I am certain we will both enjoy the challenge.”

The American went a little further yesterday when he commented: “We’ve had our rivalries. He’s said things about me and I’ve said things about him. He wasn’t much for talking on the golf course and he never seemed to complete a sentence. I think he’s in a bit of a tough spot … when you win six out of seven, you’re expected to win again. There’s more heat on him whereas I have everything to gain.”

Azinger was buzzing with adrenalin at yesterday’s press conference as he declared that “this is the greatest honour you can bestow on a golfer”.

His appointment was made by the PGA of America and before accepting the job, he insisted on some far reaching alterations to the much criticised system used to determine this year’s team at The K Club. There will be no more of the nonsense whereby only those players in the top 10 each week earned points — and above all, he will have four “wild card” selections as against two allowed to Lehman and a succession of captains before him.

“My only desire was to get the best players and I figured the best way to measure that was money,” said the man famous for saying that he has only ever choked over cash and prestige during 20 years on tour.

“We are always rewarded based on our earnings and it is the best way.

So there will be one point for every $1,000 at the 2007 majors and tour events in 2008 and double for the 2008 majors.

“For me to be able to get four picks is fantastic. Somebody asked me if I thought it would be more difficult to make four picks more than two and actually I don’t know the answer to that.

“But it seems to me like you’re going to disappoint more people if you have only two picks than you would if you had four. To wait one, two, three, four weeks after the PGA

Championship is a luxury and so I have an opportunity that no other Ryder Cup captain has had”.

Another indication, if such were needed, of how badly the Americans want that cup back!