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Captain Nick Faldo set the tone for the Ryder Cup during his opening speech on Thursday night at Valhalla. Not in terms of golf you understand, but in terms of how incredibly dull the man is. What should have been an inspirational, motivational speech was in fact mind numbingly boring and far too long, half of which was dedicated to his family!! You’d think with all the time he’d had to prepare for this moment in time, he might have at least got his facts right. But oh no, when it (finally) came to talking about his team, the embarrassing ambassador introduced Soren Hansen as Soren Stenson and asked Graeme McDowell, “Are you from Ireland or Northern Ireland?” Ignorance is no excuse at this level – this was pure cringe and extremely awkward! His incessant attempts to make jokes all week also hit the upper echelons of cringe worthiness!

Throughout the whole weekend, Faldo kept going on about how much ‘fun’ he and the team were having – Really?? With the limited coverage available (see below Ref; Sky Sports) I am not sure I witnessed any of this. I did see the Americans having fun….. and lots of it! To see Jim Furyk smiling & passionate on one hand, and Sergio Garcia dour & desolate on the other, speaks volumes about the disposition of each team. And as for Lee Westwoods out of character comments after his singles defeat about the ‘shameful Valhalla crowd’, and how ‘he wished he was on a flight at 9pm Sunday night instead of 9am Monday morning’, please…… grow up, admit defeat graciously and move on!

I am not going to make comment on Faldo’s selections over the 3 days, which have taken up far too much press, as I personally believe this is more luck than judgement. After all, they are all brilliant golfers with the ability to out play each other at any time. As long as there is cohesion in the pairings and steely determination in the singles, the rest of it is down to motivation and belief – and the Americans had bucket loads of these!

The way that Sky Sports pussyfooted around Faldo’s inadequacies was pathetic, as was their overall coverage! There was simply not enough ‘golf’ shown! The ridiculous amount of adverts aside, we had to endure the scoreboard every 2 minutes; or the picture of the 18th; or the graphics showing the pairings – you know the graphics I am talking about; where each player walks up to the camera, smiles and folds their arms – awful, awful, awful!!! How many times did we see the last 6 pairings actually playing golf on the last day? And the first group had got to about the 5th hole before we got coverage of each afternoons fourballs whilst the commentators had their ‘break’. Add to this the dull, condescending, conceited tones of Ewen Murray and you have a full house of utter sh*t. To learn that the BBC also sent a full contingent of commentators to Valhalla for both TV, in order to bring us a ‘highlights’ programme, and for the Radio 5 ‘Football Channel’, also beggars belief – what a complete waste of our licence money… especially with Gary Linekar, once again, getting a free ride on TV!

Enough of the shortcomings, lets talk about the highlights, of which there were many.

My top 3 highlights were as follows:

- In third place – seeing JB Holmes hit a driver and a 6 iron into the green on the 594 yards par 5 tenth. We all like to hit the ball a long way but this guy is ridiculous!!
- In second place – Ian Poulter. He was sublime all week and to this end, one has to applaud Faldo for his wildcard pick. I would also like to mention Graeme McDowell and Robert Karlsson who both performed with aplomb.
- In first place – it has to go to Boo Weekley who single handedly got the crowd behind Team USA. Who will ever forget his antics on the 1st on Sunday as he gave a good impression of the Kentucky Derby as he ran up the fairway riding his driver like a horse and pretending to whip his backside – pure genius!! And my ribs are sore from laughter just thinking about it now. And as for some of his quotes, like this one - “The adrenalin, I feel like a dog that somebody done stuck a needle to and it juiced me up like I’ve been running around a greyhound track chasing one of them bunnies.” The man is a breath of fresh air who puts our sport in perspective.

Simply put, this was sport at its best! The Ryder Cup is the ultimate golf competition and, I, for one, am glad the USA won as it will only further enhance the spectacle and reputation of this great competition and our great sport. I shall be trying to get tickets to the Ryder Cup in Wales in 2010 and I just hope that Mr Boo Weekley is a member of the USA team that year.

4 days after the culmination of the greatest sporting event in the world, I am just about recovering, though have vowed to become tee total, at least until the weekend. I am, of course, referring to the Rugby World Cup! You see, my two sporting passions are rugby & golf and for the past month, one of them had to give – needless to say, in this instance, the round ball lost out.

What an event!! There were some massive highs – I was fortunate enough to be in Marseille when England beat the Aussies which rates as my No. 2 high. My No. 3 high was when England beat France a week later in Paris. What was my No. 1 high?? I will tell you; it was watching France beat the All Blacks on a TV in a French street in the middle of a tiny fishing village just outside Marseille. This was followed by a street party of repute with, amongst others, English, French, Welsh, South African, Australian, American & Canadian fans. World in Union – you betcha!! My only regret was that I wasn’t in Cardiff to see the reaction of the New Zealand fans.

Having been on the Lions Tour to New Zealand in 2005, and having witnessed first hand how ungracious their fans and press (if you can call them that) were in victory, I always wanted to know how they would react in defeat. Their reaction to this defeat had to be the No. 1 low of the whole tournament - one word….. Pathetic!! To put this in context, the behavior of the Aussies after losing to England was exemplary and we all drank together afterwards. Further, I was at the final last weekend and again the behaviour of both fans after the game was one of camaraderie, fun & festiveness. And guess what…. I am a staunch English fan and South Africa deserved to win that game, they deserve to be World Champions.

I shall be going to South Africa in 2 years time to follow the Lions – it promises to be a fantastic tour with the best of the British & Irish playing the World Champions. Will I be going to New Zealand in 4 years time – no way! I shall certainly be watching it on TV supporting Rugby first and England second, but I shall spend by hard earned pennies playing golf. Which reminds me, address, head down, swing……

So there I was, wondering what to write about in relation to The Open - with so many possible subject matters, it was becoming a bit of a muddle. And, then right at the end, after a fantastic 4 days, a comment was made that sent me into a spin… I simply went bananas!!

Right from the start I had been looking to make a comment about the BBC and specifically their decision to make Gary Linekar the front man for their golf coverage. I know he has been doing it for a few years now, but trust me; he has been irritating me for a few years too!! The problem is that I like the guy and so have always found it difficult to criticise him… Until now!

If his embarrassingly cringing interview in Spanish with Andres Romero (whilst there was some pretty damn important golf going on at the time!!) was not enough to make you want to ‘throw up’, then surely, his ‘chat’ with (the fantastic) Mark James whilst waiting for the play off to start was enough to make one want to top themselves!! During this pathetic interlude, he made the comment that ‘It’s a bit like a penalty shoot-out’!!

WHAT?!?!…… NO, GARY NO….. it is NOTHING like a penalty shoot out for f**ks sake!! A ‘penalty shoot out’ is what tends to happen when 2 teams filled with spoiled, overpaid brats have nothing better to do after 120 minutes of utter boredom. Call me a clairvoyant but I’m guessing this is what Mr Linekar was referring to considering his sporting background. Whereas, a ‘play-off’ is what tends to happen when a stalemate has been reached after 4 days and 72 holes of highly skilled competition - as in what happened during the drama that was Carnoustie!!

Honestly, the BBC does use some of our licence fee to produce some complete and utter tosh. But having Gary Linekar front The Open (and The Masters), the rights to which they have paid a fortune, is a massive travesty. With the likes of the aforementioned Mark James, Ken Brown, Sam Torrance and, of course, Peter Alliss, they have a great team. Gary Linekar is not, and never will be, a part of that. Please, no more…please!!