Faldo clarifies friendly comments
“It was only an observation,” he insisted. “A couple of years ago at an event in America, three of the four leaders on a Sunday were having lunch together. I thought, wow, that was different to my era.
“And this week I was at a press conference with Seve and we both sort of agreed, that’s not what we were like in our day.
“I’m now in a position to make observations and I haven’t added anything to it. In fact, I’m not even sure if there was a European player amongst those three. It was a generalisation. In what other professional sport do the guys have lunch together before they have to go out and knock their heads off?
“I thought it was very interesting and that’s where it stops.”
There was a time when the mini furore created by his simple comments might have enraged Faldo.
But he sat coolly and calmly, delivered his views without the slightest sign of strain, and even smiled when it was put to him that he might apologise.
“It wasn’t directed at anyone,” he claimed. “Does it lessen the competitive instincts if they’re lunching out and hanging out together? I don’t know. It might be an interesting thing to look at over the next 20 years.
“What I’ve been talking about is the need for the players to get in there and really feel the experience by which I mean leading at the end of the day, it’s going home, coming to the media tent, sleeping on a lead, first tee off is at 3.15 on the weekend and you’ve got all that time to think about it.
“I really feel this is a major part of the mental side of the game. You’ve got to experience that to know how different you react and what different emotional state it creates.”
Faldo went on to note that Justin Rose has been doing that, pointing out that “he led at Augusta a couple of years ago and blew up. But he learned from that and was in there until the 71st hole this year. That’s more powerful than coming from 25th on Saturday night, shooting a good last day, and thinking maybe I can win. But it’s a different feeling. The more they get into the experience zone, the better. And Rosey has done that and is the one who obviously comes to mind for me this week.”
There was never a whole lot of love lost between Faldo and Ballesteros.
When a tearful Seve threw his arms around Nick after he had won a crucial Ryder Cup match at Oak Hill in 2005, the world looked on in disbelief.
But Faldo is big enough of a man to admit that: “Seve broke the mould for us at Augusta. It was difficult for a European to win the Masters because the course is different, super fast fairways and greens, everything. We had a fabulous run after that win by Seve — seven out of nine years. It could happen again. We’ve got an awful lot of good players stacked up behind Tiger. I believe that Tiger has at least five more years but somewhere along the line those guys have to start looking at themselves and saying I’m in a position to win a major. It’s me against those other guys.”
Of Ballesteros the golfer, Faldo could hardly have been more gracious: “He was golf’s Cirque du Soleil. That’s the greatest show I’ve ever seen and that was Seve, passion, artistry, skill, drama. The last round at Lytham in 1988 was something special. That man was in a different state. It was quite something. We talked about the swashbuckling way he played. You had to stand back and admire it. I talked to him in the scorer’s tent and told him it was the greatest round of golf I had ever seen. We had good respect for each.”
But you know for sure they never sat down to lunch together!
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