Take That, Corey: Monty Planning Sitdown With Faldo No Matter How Painful It Might Be

While Corey Pavin resists talking to winning 2008 Ryder Cup captain Paul Azinger, his counterpart in Europe is going to sit down with Nick Faldo to find out how it all went wrong at Valhalla. Alan Campbell reports:

“I will be talking to Nick,” he said. “He will be over at the Open Championship in St Andrews commentating for television, so that will be an opportunity.

“I’m not doing it because I have to, but because I want to. Sam, Bernhard and Ian were all winning captains, but sometimes you can learn more from a defeat than you can from a win. If Nick can sit down with me, and we can talk openly and honestly about what he would have done differently in hindsight, we can learn from that for the sake of the European Tour.

“I am in a position where I was selected as captain by the European Tour to try to win back the Ryder Cup. In these [difficult] economic times it is very important for everybody that we do that.”

As Tom English notes, the Monty-Faldo relationship has to be far worse than Pavin-Azinger. At least as far as we know.

Monty and Nick chewing the fat. An all-ticket affair if ever there was one, given the tortured history between the pair of them. Monty has spoken to most of Faldo's team already. He's heard the stories, you feel. Heard all about the animosity of the Valhalla galleries, for sure. And maybe picked up on one or two of the niggles between certain players also. This is all grist to his mill, of course.