After watching his players tackle the Valhalla course for their second practice round, Captain Nick Faldo is confident that his European Team is exactly where he wants it to be with less than 48 hours to go before The Ryder Cup begins.
Faldo sent all 12 players out to play the back nine before practising some relaxed chipping and putting as the European Team continued to adjust to their new surroundings and get over their jet lag following Monday’s transatlantic flight.
“The guys are doing well,” he said. “They are all happy and getting very acclimatised. We decided to have an easy day. Most of them, probably 10 out of 12 I think, if not all 12, will just chip and putt and do a little bit of work on their own games this afternoon.
“Obviously we've got the gala dinner tonight, but that's kind of the game plan. They had a long day yesterday and with jet‑lag and that sort of thing.
“I'm more than happy with that. That's what the guys want to do. Things are all pretty good. Very good for a Wednesday.”
Faldo said he had been consulting with the 12 Team members to acquire their views on which partners they wished to play with, which had helped him get an idea of his opening pairings.
“I am the hub of the ship right now so we're getting all the information together and working on things as a team,” he said. “As I said before, the team is very tight and we are having a great time. The guys are talking so much, giving their honest opinions, pulling for each other, and we've got a great atmosphere going, which is good.
“I have a very good idea (of the pairings). If you've been watching, I talked to over half the team, or more than that, and the input's been great from the guys. So we pretty much have a very clear idea of what we're going to do.”
The six-time Major winner knows all about the pressure of The Ryder Cup, having won 25 points in 11 appearances, and he is fully aware of the impact that his own triple Major winner Padraig Harrington could have in Kentucky.
Harrington’s victories at The Open Championship and the US PGA Championship this summer to add to his Claret jug in 2007 have propelled the Irishman into golf’s elite group of multiple Major winners and Faldo believes that will serve him well in The Ryder Cup cauldron.
“He's able to hang onto experiences and he knows how he reacts under these circumstances,” said Faldo. “When you know how you react or how you respond, it makes a big difference. If you're there and it's, well, ‘what's going on’ because everything is totally different, your body and your mind is different. He now knows that and he can deal with that and he knows how to perform.”
If Harrington’s form has almost fated him to be Europe’s focal point, Sergio Garcia is seen by many as the Team’s talisman and Faldo is quite clear on what the Spaniard brings to Europe’s big for a fourth successive Ryder Cup.
He said: “Passion. That man's got tons of passion. It’s very much the Spanish thing, along with Seve and Olazábal and many champions or many Ryder Cup players from the past, the Pińeros, the Riveros, Spain has always made a great contribution to The Ryder Cup.”
