Sergio Garcia's European team-mates leapt to his defence after former Ryder Cup captain Nick Faldo described the Spaniard's Ryder Cup performance under him six years ago at Valhalla as "useless".
While Faldo praised the 34-year-old’s overall contribution to the biennial contest he also claimed the player had a “bad attitude” in 2008 – Europe’s only defeat since 1999 – in scoring one point in four matches.
Garcia, whose brilliant five-wood approach to the 18th green helped him and Rory McIlroy somehow salvage a half from being two down with two to play against Jimmy Walker and Rickie Fowler, was reluctant to become embroiled in a row.
“Are you sure you didn’t misquote him (faldo) . . . ? That’s unfortunate,” he said.
“I guess he doesn’t feel European, that’s the only thing I can think of. You know, there’s a lot of things I could say about Nick Faldo but I’m not going to put myself down to his level.”
Some of the senior players alongside Garcia in the press conference looked less than impressed, their upbeat mood – with a 5-3 lead at the end of the first day – deflated a notch by the issue.
"That's a great question. Okay. We'll take the euphoria we all have from today and just crush it. . . ," Lee Westwood, who with rookie Jamie Donaldson beat Jim Furyk and Matt Kuchar by two holes, said sarcastically.
But Garcia’s team-mates were not prepared to leave him undefended and Graeme McDowell, in particular, felt it necessary to make a point about Faldo’s contribution to that Ryder Cup.
The then captain rested both Garcia and Westwood on the Saturday after they had contributed a point from three matches on the previous day.
“I’ll make a comment on that,” said McDowell. “I’m a rookie playing the Ryder Cup in 2008 and you’ve got one of the best Ryder Cup pairings of all time being sat down on a Saturday morning of a Ryder Cup that we go on to lose.
“I’d say Sergio was fairly useless, yeah, because he wasn’t able to play.”
McIlroy, who asked to play with Garcia and struggled through 36 holes with him on the opening day, put his arm around Garcia, and said “You’re not useless.”
Garcia responded by saying: “Thanks, Nick, I love you, too.”
The pair continued to talk off microphone as the press conference continued but neither looked happy.
