‘No I don’t think so’, I’d tell Sir Nick
It has been my experience that professional golfers are largely the most approachable, pleasant and likeable people in sport.
From the late Arnold Palmer to Tom Watson, Annika Sorenstam to Catriona Matthew, it has been a pleasure to rub shoulders with such legends. But there are exceptions – albeit mercifully few – and one name may surprise you.
Phil Mickelson does not have quite as many faces as the average town clock but he has at least two. Although even he struggles to compete with the man I regard as the rudest, most arrogant, utterly dismissive individual in golf.
I refer to six-time Major winner Nick Faldo – and I’m not alone in expressing the opinion that Sir Nick is largely unplayable.
Just ask the unassuming Sandy Lyle, one of nasty Nick’s most high-profile victims when he reported the popular Scot for a rules infraction at the 1980 Kenya Open.
Although I had already witnessed his mean streak several times, my first direct clash with Faldo came on July 18, 1997.
I’ve no trouble recalling the date because it was his 40th birthday and the same sports editor who turned the late Jim Farry into an onion head thought it would be another “bit of fun” to present Faldo with a gift on behalf of the newspaper.
The late cartoonist Malky McCormick was commissioned to produce one of his wonderful caricatures but as I approached Faldo at Royal Troon I was given short shrift.
Faldo took one look at his gift, slammed the door shut in my face and snapped: “I don’t think so” followed by several expletives. I didn’t altogether blame him, given his treatment by the tabloids. But his behaviour years later left me bewildered.
I had been employed by one of the broadsheets to produce a daily golf column during the Scottish Open at Loch Lomond.
I considered Faldo had been subjected to unfair criticism for his part in his “Lettergate” spat with Ryder Cup captain Mark James and defended his actions. He clearly enjoyed reading my words, for he asked a colleague of mine to convey a message along the lines that if there was anything he could do for me in return, I only had to ask.
You know what’s coming, don’t you? Yes, five days later, back at the Open, when I approached Faldo and introduced myself prior to requesting an interview, I was given his standard response: “I don’t think so.”
I completed my Faldo trilogy at Loch Lomond a few years later and asked: “Excuse me, Nick, can I have a word?”
There was no “I don’t think so” this time. Instead he looked at me as if I was something he had just scraped off the sole of his shoe and barked: “It’s Sir Nick. No.”
I won’t be asking again. Great golfer he may have been, would I want to go for a pint with him? No, I don’t think so!