Ryder Cup Betting / Bill Elliott / 18 September 2008 / Leave a comment

Bill Elliott has been unimpressed by the performance of Europe's captain in front of the media and a previously rock-solid belief in the current champs is on the wane...

This 37th Ryder Cup is, for now anyway, all about two men... Nick Faldo and Paul Azinger. And the way things are going now either, or both, may very well implode before this hectic week is out.

With the heat cranking up towards the high eighties - the forecast for the weekend is possibly even higher - the real hot stuff is taking place every time the two skippers come in for a chat with the world's media. As ever we are a cuddly bunch but you wouldn't know it when Faldo and Azinger start answering questions.

Unless these questions are on the far side of innocuous each of these alpha males starts to bristle early. Of the two, Faldo is the more brittle. No surprise here for the Englishman has been brittle through almost all of the 30 years I have now known him. At 51 he is not about to start trying to charm us.

When a Sky TV cameraman caught a peek-a-boo shot of what appeared to be a pairings list over Faldo's shoulder it seemed that the European captain's secret plans were out there for the world to see. At first Faldo tried to pass it off as a list of names against which he planned to place their sandwich choices for lunch.

When nobody bought this, he changed tack and tried to joke it off and when that failed he just got irritable. Well, this is not good enough. The captain's role is to set the tone for his side, to be diplomatic and canny and as interesting as he can be without giving much away. Faldo is just combative.

Ian Poulter, too, was combative when he came in to talk to us. Inevitably he was asked if he had been welcomed warmly by team-mates who had been shocked to hear his name and not Darren Clarke's when the captain's picks were revealed. Poulter immediately went far too defensive.

This is perhaps understandable but the feeling here is growing that all is not perfect sweetness and light in the European team room. This may be right or it may be wrong but it is the first Ryder Cup I've been at - and I've been coming since 1977 - that this sort of rumour has spread.

Of course this may just be because journalists are desperate to drum up something of interest other than the fact that we're all here. But then again...

Meanwhile, here is how I suspect Faldo and Azinger are thinking re pairings.
USA first - Jim Furyk and Kenny Perry, JB Holmes and Boo Weekley, Stuart Cink and Steve Stricker, Ben Curtis and Chad Campbell, Phil Mickelson and Anthony Kim, Hunter Mahan and Justin Leonard. Zinger by the way insists he will play all 12 of his men on Friday. With six rookies in his side this may be good thinking too.

Faldo is, as ever, more secretive but unless something big changes here then it looks like he'll be choosing his first four groups from Sergio Garcia and Miguel Angel Jimenez, Padraig Harrington and Graeme McDowell, Oliver Wilson and Paul Casey, Lee Westwood and Soren Hansen, Henrik Stenson and Robert Karlsson, Ian Poulter and Justin Rose.

We'll find out late tonight how accurate my predictions are but I shall be surprised if I am wildly wrong. What I am slowly beginning to feel, however, is that the Americans have a real chance of winning this one.

On the other hand Faldo might take some happy pills and turn into the captain he actually needs to be. We'll see.