"CAPTAIN NICK FALDO: Blimey."
/Not much of interest in the Captain Faldo and Captain Azinger chat with the lucky media getting to spend Monday in Louisville.
There was one obviously testy exchange, with an attempted rally kill as noted by Lewine Mair. The transcript:
Q. By your own admission, you've taken a bit of a bashing from the Irish media recently; but can you give us your thoughts on the two Irish golfers you've got on your team and whether you fancy playing them together? And to Paul, how pleased were you to see Darren Clarke not in Nick's lineup?
CAPTAIN NICK FALDO: Blimey.
CAPTAIN PAUL AZINGER: All I'll say is that I didn't want to justify why I didn't pick anybody but I would be glad to justify why I picked the guys I did.
So I'm not going to try to justify why Nick didn't pick Darren Clarke. He just brought over 12 I think pretty darned good players, and he had a couple more that he could have chosen. If it was 14 players, I'm pretty sure I know who the other two would be, but it's only 12.
CAPTAIN NICK FALDO: The Irish boys are playing well. From two years ago, we have a three-time major winner, who is pretty impressive. And whoever I put the two Irish boys together, it's Monday afternoon, I just walked off a plane.
Q. How important is it for you to sort generate an awful lot of excitement along the local fans here in the days leading up?
CAPTAIN PAUL AZINGER: I think the local fans are already motivated and we'll do everything we can to get those fans ready. I think those fans, they have been waiting for two years for this, so I think they have embraced The Ryder Cup. I feel like they have made me one of their own here and I'm real happy to be here and I couldn't think of a better place for us to play the 37th Ryder Cup than Louisville, Kentucky. If I could hand pick any place in the country this would probably be the spot. I think they will be behind us. The message to the crowd is be enthusiastic, raucous, crazy if you like, but keep it all within the realm of good sportsmanship.
Q. The Open Champion, would you be slightly worried about what you've seen in the last few weeks, that perhaps fatigue might be setting in, and is it that you think the adrenaline rush of The Ryder Cup can overcome that?
CAPTAIN NICK FALDO: No, he's rested. I spoke to him. I'm very pleased. We're very pleased, the way guys that played last week in Germany, obviously Robert Karlsson won, and the rest of the guys played very well.
Outside of that, the rest of the team is rested, and Padraig is one of them. He's had the weeks off. I chatted with him and he knew what he was doing with his schedule, so the guys have been practicing and kept themselves all light and well oiled, that was kind of one of my requests. No, the team is raring to go.