Golf: No easy Ryder for Faldo

Nick Faldo is getting ready to send Europe’s Ryder Cup team another ‘‘good luck’’ message - but this time it will be delivered verbally rather than in a letter.

Despite achieving the 10th hole-in-one of his career, the most capped player in cup history has resigned himself to missing out on The Belfry next month after his failure to stay in contention at the United States PGA championship in Atlanta.

‘‘I’ll let the young devils get on with it,’’ said Faldo, who after describing the event as his last-ditch attempt to make the side added: ‘‘Now I’m in the ditch.’’

Mark James, captain of the 1999 team, threw a good luck note from Faldo into a rubbish bin in Boston following a falling-out between the two.

Sam Torrance, James’s assistant then, is now the man in charge and when asked if he would be sending the same message Faldo said: ‘‘I don’t want to stir things up again. But they know I want them to do it.’’

Faldo, who would have had to finish second in the USPGA to qualify for this week’s NEC world championship in Akron, is not going to play in the final counting event in Munich next week.

Two years ago he flew there to try to press his claims for a wild card, only to be told after the second round by James that he was unlikely to be selected even if he won the tournament.

‘‘I’m not going through that again,’’ added the six-time major champion, whose omission from the last match ended a run of appearances going back to his debut in 1977.

Ian Woosnam and Jose Maria Olazabal were also sounding gloomy about his Ryder Cup prospects entering the final round in Atlanta, Olazabal believing that Torrance has already decided to hand his wild cards to Sergio Garcia and Jesper Parnevik.

Woosnam, who would have been heading for a ninth cap but for the extra club fiasco at the Open which cost him nearly £220,000, said after slumping to four over par in the USPGA: ‘‘It’s not looking good now.’’

Missing out on the world championship did leave the option of playing in the Scottish PGA championship at Gleneagles instead to try to force his way closer to the top 10. But after filing an entry Woosnam has now decided to spend the week with his family in Barbados.

‘‘A nice rum and coke has the edge,’’ he said.

Olazabal may have to win in Munich to make it into an automatic top 10 spot, but says: ‘‘I don’t think I will make the team and it’s not going to be the end of the world if I don’t I didn’t play in 1995 either.’’

That, though, was when he was injured. This time it is because of a system that counts against those playing on the US Tour.

The top players agree almost to a man that two wild cards is not enough and Olazabal commented: ‘‘We started saying it was wrong a long time ago, but nobody listens.

‘‘We are way down the bottom - nobody listens.’’

Disappointed by his putting again this week the double Masters champion added: ‘‘All I want to do is play good golf. That will satisfy me enough.’’

Olazabal had to finish seventh in the US PGA to have a chance of qualifying for the world championship and the £3.5million on offer there, but having also qualified right on the limit of one over a third round 68 in which he three-putted the 16th and 17th for bogeys left him in 32nd spot.

This April Faldo celebrated 25 years as a professional and he says: ‘‘It’s starting to feel like it.

‘‘My body is telling me it’s done a lot of work and I’m lucky I have a very good physio.

‘‘I’ve tried to step up my gym work, but I’ve got to find a an easier route.’’

Faldo stood three under after the first round on Thursday and with one hole of his second round to go was two under. But then came a triple bogey seven on the final hole and, having survived the cut with nothing to spare, he scored a third round 71 to go into the final day on two over.

The ace came on the 204-yard fourth and was Faldo’s first in a major championship. His most famous hole-in-one came in the 1993 Ryder Cup at The Belfry’s 14th hole against Paul Azinger in the last day singles.