Young guns give Faldo last laugh

The story of Nick Faldo's life was duly played out at the Seve Trophy yesterday, as he emerged triumphant through a hail of criticism.

You name it, they had queued up on Friday and Saturday to take their shots at the Britain and Ireland captain. The final motivating straw came when TV pundits predicted that Faldo's singles order was so clueless they had no hope of winning any of the first three matches yesterday. Well, maybe there is a reason why he has six majors to his name and those critics have none.

The British team claimed not only the top three singles, they never stopped winning thereafter, with all Faldo's young guns coming up trumps to clinch a 161⁄2-111⁄2 success.

The case for Faldo's defence was perhaps best put by Paul Casey, who came into this event in a rut following a long run of poor form, and it showed with a desperate performance on day one.

Enter Faldo, with an impromptu lesson producing such positive results that Casey was no less than six under in demolishing Raphael Jacquelin.

Casey said: "I leave this event feeling a lot better about my game, and a large part of that is down to Nick. He has a very good eye and everything he said about what I was doing wrong was confirmed by my coach Peter Kostis. He's not interested in little details like whether every player's dinner is hot. He is just out there on the range doing everything to make sure we win."

It is because he is a winner that Faldo overlooked Paul McGinley, without a top-10 finish in 22 European events this year, and went for Marc Warren and Simon Dyson.

That might have been a large contributory factor to poor attendances here. But look what happened. Dyson defeated the previously unbeaten Mikko Ilonen, while Warren showed his cool nerve under pressure by winning on the home green against Scottish Open champion Gregory Havret.

Then there was the unsung Phillip Archer, unbeaten in five matches and claiming the winning half-point by finishing all square against Markus Brier.

Top and tailing Faldo's near-perfect day were Colin Montgomerie and Justin Rose. Monty has never emerged pointless from a team event at any level. He preserved that record with a gutsy one-hole win against Robert Karlsson, while Rose beat Miguel Angel Jimenez.