Padraig Harrington says Ryder Cup loss wasn’t Nick Faldo’s fault

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Padraig Harrington won two major championships this year, but he and his teammates on Team Europe wound up losing a big one when the underdog U.S. team won the Ryder Cup for the first time in nine years. Nick Faldo took a sound beating in the British press for how he handled his job as captain, but Harrington said to lay off Faldo.

‘The captain is always judged on whether his team wins or loses regardless of anything else, and that’s always the case at the Ryder Cup,’ Harrington said during a media conference for the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship in St. Andrews, Scotland. ‘If it’s a losing team, people will find the negative.’

So if it wasn’t Faldo’s fault, whose fault was it?

‘It’s not what the captain himself does, it’s more on the team’s performance.’

That’s probably why U.S. captain Paul Azinger is throwing out the first pitch for the Tampa Rays this week.

-- Thomas Bonk