Azinger: Don't blame Faldo

Nick Faldo’s European Ryder Cup captaincy has been strongly defended by United States rival Paul Azinger.

The victorious American captain leapt to the defence of his rival and former television commentary partner in the wake of the United States’ 161/2-111/2 win over Europe at Valhalla.

The Americans won back the cup for the first time since 1999, ending a three-match run of European dominance and Azinger said he expected Faldo to come in for some flak, just as previous losing captains from both sides had following their defeats.

“The press will pound him over there but the captains get way too much blame when it doesn’t happen,” Azinger said. “You know, somebody’s got to win and lose.

“Everybody wants to second guess everything that Curtis (Strange) or Hal (Sutton) or Lanny (Wadkins) or Kite did.

“They blamed Tom Kite because Michael Jordan rode in the cart. He rode in the cart for one or two holes. Suddenly it was Tom Kite’s fault? That was crazy. So, Faldo will get it. Mark James got it, (Bernard) Gallacher got it. Everybody gets it.”

Faldo was widely criticised beforehand for not taking Ryder Cup talismen Colin Montgomerie and Darren Clarke as his captain’s picks and again when he chose to place his in-form players and stalwarts at the bottom of the order for the 12 deciding singles matches.

That decision saw victories for Ian Poulter and Graeme McDowell rendered meaningless as were the matches for Lee Westwood and Padraig Harrington.

Azinger also defended Faldo’s decision to rest big guns Sergio Garcia and Westwood for the Saturday morning foursomes session, a move that went unexplained on Friday when the pairings were announced and led to another round of criticism.

Azinger explained: “He only had one guy that went five matches and I only had two guys that went five matches.

“I did the maths – if a guy plays five matches he loses about 75-80% of the time in singles. So I tried to avoid that and I give Nick credit for trying to avoid that rather than rip him for taking a chance.

“I may be wrong, I have no idea. I’m not going to justify, as I said all week, anything that he did or didn’t do.”

Azinger, meanwhile, will go down as the American captain who energised the fans at Valhalla and introduced a new team-building strategy that got previously under-performing individual golfers to act like a unit and play for country with as much enthusiasm as they do for themselves.

He added: “I watched a documentary. I’ve had this idea for about five years, if I was ever the captain, how I would try to approach the team.

“You know, we just decided to come together in small groups, that was it. Beyond that, I don’t know what else to tell you.

“We put four guys together in practice rounds and they played together every day, and they were the four guys who stayed together the whole week and they were never going to come out of their little group. That’s the way I did it.

“It was about how to take small groups and just to break them up.”

Azinger even extended the concept through to the singles line-up, sending his four-man practice groups together in three waves led by Anthony Kim, Hunter Mahan, Justin Leonard and Phil Mickelson; followed by Kenny Perry, Boo Weekley, JB Holmes and Jim Furyk and brought home by Stewart Cink, Steve Stricker, Ben Curtis and Chad Campbell.

The captain explained: “I wanted my four aggressive personalities and players to go out first and I wanted my steady, supportive kind of personality guys who are just rock solid, with unflappable personalities, to anchor this team.

“We collectively came together. We circled the table. I gave the players a couple of options and they shot me down right away. They liked the first option right away. Honestly, I had the first option in my head for probably two weeks.”