GOLF - Ryder Cup European team announcement: The "Great Dane" hasn't taken his omission from Europe's Ryder Cup team lying down, biting back with all the ferocity of a man who feels acutely hard done by.
In what could be the first true test of his captaincy, Ian Woosnam will have to deal with the fall-out caused by Thomas Bjorn, spurned for a captain's wild card pick in favour of Lee Westwood for the match at The K Club on September 22nd-24th, who has hit back by describing Woosnam's captaincy as "the most pathetic" he had seen.
With the first wild card going to Darren Clarke, Bjorn, who needed to win the BMW International Open in Munich to overtake Jose Maria Olazabal and claim the 10th automatic place on the team, was overlooked for the second captain's pick.
Bjorn, a two-time Ryder Cup player who was on the winning teams at Valderrama in 1997 and The Belfry in 2002, was not amused at his absence from the team or the manner in which he found out - watching the team announcement on television in his hotel room. He claimed Woosnam had "definitely gone down in my estimation" in how he had handled the matter.
Currently ranked 35th in the world to Westwood's 47th, Bjorn finished 13th (behind Paul Broadhurst and Johan Edfors) in the final Ryder Cup qualifying campaign to Westwood's 21st. "Let me say from the outset that I have nothing against Lee Westwood. Lee is a fantastic golfer, a great guy. But if you can find one category in which he has beaten me, then I would like to see it. Woosnam has got nothing to base his decision on," said Bjorn.
He continued: "Earlier this year, Woosnam warned players to be careful if they were playing a lot in the States, saying he was going to pick players who base themselves in Europe. Then he picks Lee, who spent most of the first half of the year in America.
"If he had picked (Carl) Pettersson I wouldn't have had a problem, because he has won twice in America. How can you argue with the way he has played this year? With all due respect to Lee, he has not been playing well, he hasn't won this year, and he hasn't been at the top of his game."
When Bjorn missed out on qualifying for the last Ryder Cup at Oakland Hills in Detroit, where Europe claimed a record 18½-9½ win, the Dane was asked to fill a backroom role by captain Bernhard Langer. In the end, Bjorn proved an inspirational figure in the locker-room, being especially effective with the "rookies" on the team.
There is no chance of a similar capacity being created for Bjorn this time: "This will be the first time I don't even watch the Ryder Cup on television," he insisted, "and you don't know how sad that is, given how much I care for the tournament, the European Tour and the competition itself. I desperately want the 12 players to be a success, but I want them to do it in spite of the captain."
Woosnam's captaincy to date has been quite a contrast to that of his opposite number, Tom Lehman. While Lehman has organised regular team gatherings, including a full team bonding session at The K Club last week, and wrote personal letters earlier this year to all potential members of his team setting out what he expected from them if the United States were to regain a trophy they haven't held since 1999, Woosnam won't have his team together for the first time until they meet up at the course on the Monday of match week.
The reason why Europe haven't performed similar bonding sessions to the Americans, according to Woosnam, was due to travel logistics. "Some guys are playing in different countries and it is difficult to get them all together," said Woosnam.
The Welshman also said he found it "strange" that Lehman should look for advice from previous European captain Langer. Asked why he hadn't himself consulted with Langer, Woosnam replied: "I've been in the team room many times. I've been a vice-captain. I've seen how it works before, and I'll carry on the way it has happened before."
Further unhappiness in the camp emerged over the weekend when Jose Maria Olazabal, who had risked securing an automatic place on the team by staying away from the final counting event in Munich, took umbrage with comments made by Colin Montgomerie. When asked if he envisaged having to paper over some cracks in the team room and solving any possible disharmony in the camp, Woosnam responded that it would "be just put under the mat".
That could be wishful thinking. Bjorn claimed "there are a lot of people feeling uneasy about the Woosie captaincy. Stories will start to come out . . . I have had a lot of things to deal with in my career, but this is the hardest.
"This is harder even than what happened at the (British) Open in 2003 (when he suffered a late, final-round collapse to allow Ben Curtis to win) and The K Club (in 2005, when he took an 11 on the 17th in the final round of the European Open). Everywhere I went after those occasions, people told me that I had to get back on the horse. But here, I am just completely lost for words. Of course I will have to pick myself up but it is going to be difficult."
When Woosnam eventually got around to speaking with Bjorn on Sunday night, the conversation was short and not sweet. "He wasn't a happy chappy," admitted Woosnam. "He was very, very disappointed. He didn't say a lot. I tried to say, 'I hope you respect my decision'. But someone has got to do the job. Someone's got to pick the team. I feel sorry for the guys who've missed out. Hopefully, when this blows over, after a while we can have a few beers over it."
Traditionally, team spirit has been one of the factors attributed to Europe's recent success in the competition, in which they have won four of the last five matches. Woosnam's first battle, before even facing the Americans, is to ensure that traditional spirit materialises at The K Club.
