His Way Is Down Fairway

Nick Faldo, the golfer, is what I call the “Yes, but . . . “ type of athlete.

You know the kind. Someone says, “Well, old Joe is a great hitter, .340 average,” and someone else says, “Yes, but he only hits singles.”

Or someone says, “Old Bombs Away is a great puncher,” and someone else says, “Yes, but he’s too easy to hit. He’s been knocked out five times.”

Or the complaint about a great pitcher or passer, “Yeah, but he can’t throw hard (or long).”

Nick Faldo? Someone says he’s a great golfer and back comes, “Yes, but he’s too dull. He plays it too safe.”

We like guys who make threes out of the rough. We like guys such as Palmer, who try for twos and make 12s. We like guys who get the wood out.

Faldo can’t make twos from the trees. He’s never in them. He doesn’t knock Opens into the water on 18. He lays up short of it. The prevailing opinion is, Nick Faldo plays such impeccable, trouble-free golf, it’s no wonder he looks as if he’s not having any fun out there.

It’s a reputation Faldo got when he won a British Open once with 18 consecutive pars on the final day. In the modern world of reckless golf, that is somehow viewed as just checking a poker hand with three aces, standing on 16 at the blackjack table, walking the cleanup hitter, punting on third down.

It rankles Nick Faldo. He’s not Arnold Palmer, he’s not Seve Ballesteros--but neither was Ben Hogan, nor Jack Nicklaus. And no one ever found fault with their approach to golf.

“When I won the (British) Open at St. Andrews, I read that article that said I was a plodder, plodding my way to victory,” he says. “I was 17 under par at the time! I ended up 18 under. Does that sound like plodding?”

Still, Faldo’s image persists with the 16-handicappers in the press room. He comes into focus as a guy who just defends himself against the golf course, doesn’t attack it. He’s like a fighter who just jabs you to death.

The 18 pars at Muirfield did it. Golf writers like cards with six bogeys and six birdies--or six bogeys, four birdies and an eagle. Preferably, an eagle out of a buried lie in a bird’s nest on the next fairway. Gives them something to write about.

“Seve makes birdies out of the parking grounds, Arnold saves par off rocks in the Pacific Ocean but I schedule my practice to take the most direct route to the hole. I thought that was the way you’re supposed to play,” Faldo comments wryly.

What about his deliberately bogeying of No. 17 on the last round of the British on Sunday this year?

“Well, I’d done all the work, hadn’t I? The weeks and hours of preparation? I had a six-shot lead. It would have been foolish to throw it all away. I could have tried to put the ball on the back of the green with a two-iron, but the notion is to win, too, isn’t it?”

Faldo sees nothing wrong with engineering your way around a golf course. Hogan did it. Probably Bobby Jones, too.

The controversy over his playing style blots out the central fact about Nick Faldo, which is that he’s the first Brit since the days of the storied Harry Vardon (and Ted Ray) to become, unarguably, the premier golfer in the world today.

Henry Cotton, who became Sir Henry Cotton, approached it in the 1930s and ‘40s but he won only one tournament in this country and certainly never won back-to-back Masters. Tony Jacklin won the British Open and U.S. Open within a year of each other but was hardly recognized as the world’s best in his era, which was the heyday of Palmer, Nicklaus, Ray Floyd, Gary Player, Johnny Miller, Billy Casper and Lee Trevino.

Faldo has won two British Opens and two Masters. He was in a playoff for the 1988 U.S. Open and missed the 1990 Open playoff by one putt. He is also a leader in the renaissance of European Ryder Cup golf. British golfers went from 1951 to 1969 and then from 1969 to 1985 without even winning their own Open.

“We used to be somewhat in awe of the status and reputation (of the Americans),” Faldo admits. “It used to be said a British golfer stood on the first tee two shots down because of this.”

Not any more. Nick Faldo has been paid the ultimate accolade. He has been chosen to play this week in the golfing summit, the Skins Game at PGA West in La Quinta.

This is a trick tournament but only the all-time elite get to tee it up, and Faldo, who was chosen PGA player of the year, is in the company of the legendary Jack Nicklaus, the flashy Greg Norman and the best U.S. hope, Curtis Strange.

Is Faldo the new Nicklaus? Palmer? Hogan? Tom Watson?

Time will tell. But if you’re looking for Nick Faldo this weekend at the Stadium Course at PGA West, try the fairway first, the green, second, then the victory stand.

Forget the parking lot, the water on No. 10. In fact, forget that deep bunker on No. 16 or even the deep rough. Faldo doesn’t hang out in places like that.