INTERVIEW
Sir Nick Faldo:
Frankly
Speaking The six-time Major champion talks to Louie Chan about how he picked up the golf game, his dark days in the 80s, single-mindedness approach, Ryder Cup experiences, achievements of winning six Majors, the successful Faldo Series and the Laguna Golf La˘ng Cô, his second design in Vietnam. Photography by Jonathan Sayeb
We all know the story. You’re watching Jack Nicklaus finish runner-up at the 1971 Masters, and that inspired you to pick up the game? Sir Nick Faldo: I was looking for a sport. That’s my line. I played everything at school. I did cycling out of school, I went for tennis lessons, and they said you’re too tall back then and, in that era, you’re meant to be Rod Laver size. There were these guys in fancy colours around these trees. I love trees, and I wanted an outdoor job and to be my boss. Those were my two rules, and so there was a new sport to try. So, I went to my mum the next morning and said, “Today, I want to try golf.” They knew about Welwyn Garden City Golf Club, and so they took me, and I wandered into the pro-shop and booked my six lessons from the assistant pro, Chris Arnold. I said, “Right I’m ready”, and he said, “No, your first one is tomorrow”. So, what I learned from that now, especially with these kids, is that he installed discipline because the first lesson was the grip and the second was posture. The third lesson was alignment. I hadn’t hit a ball yet. Finally, on the fourth lesson, I hit a ball. Now, if anybody wants to learn, they hit a ball within 3 seconds. 42
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Show me that, give me a go. Unbeknownst to me, he installed that discipline of what it takes to build all of the fundamentals. I started practising, and my next-door neighbour gave me a club, a 7-iron with plastic over the shaft. I rummaged through the bushes and found 20 golf balls. My mum was a dressmaker, so she made me a little practice bag, and that was it. I used to sneak over to the school near me and to hit balls down the line of the football pitches, and there was a long jump pit at the end. I used to hit these 7 or 8 irons into this long jump pit, and I would be cross if I missed it. I went back 10 years later, and that long jump pit was 12-foot-wide and 20-foot-long, and I’m annoyed I’m missing that from 100 yards. The bottom line is, I fell in love with golf very quickly. I played my first round of golf on my 14th birthday, so I had practised for 3 months before I played my first round of golf. So, I had got past shanking, topping, missing and I could play. I think I shot in the low 80’s for my first round. I didn’t know the rules; I lost a ball what did that mean. I remember 3-putting the third and thinking that was stupid; I’ll never do that again. And so, I could at least play. By HKGOLFER.COM
Sir Nick Faldo is most proud of achieving his goal of winning six Majors HKGOLFER.COM
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Faldo’s single-mindedness approach came to bear in the Ryder Cup, which brought out some of the most amazing performances of his career
15 I fell in love with it and, at 16, I left school. It was an amazing decision by my parents, considering where we had come from. To say fine let him leave school and head to the practice ground. My parents gave me that amazing trust and, as my mother said, she knew me. She knew I would head to the practise ground rain or shine or anything and beat golf balls. I started playing amateur tournaments and started winning them. 1975 was my big year when I won the English Amateur, British Youths and Berkshire Trophy. By the old handicap system, at the start of the year I was at 3, and by the end of the year, I was at +1. Only Sandy Lyle and I were plus in the whole country with the old system. I played for Great Britain by the end of the year, so that was my rapid start to golf. Did the discipline that you had at an early age make the decision easier to change everything regarding your swing while in the midst of your professional career to get to the very top of the sport? SNF: Yes, I mean you fast forward to the end of 84, and I was European number 1 in 83. I won 5 times that year, and then I was winning every year sort of thing. Obviously, I had blown up at the open at Birkdale. Finally, I went down to South Africa in 84, and a lightbulb came on. It said: “You haven’t got it mate. This is not good enough”. This was when I met up with David Leadbetter. I chatted with a couple of other coaches before that, but David was the one that started talking about this rotation thing. He said, if we get this right, we can solve 6 problems here with one fix, and off we go. So, I thought about it, and it wasn’t until May 85’, I was in Muirfield Village and missed the cut and couldn’t hit the 12th green. I had doubled the 12th twice, and ‘Lead’ was there. I said, “Right, I’m ready to start.” And that was it, we started. It wasn’t so much a stupid decision, but it was stupid timing, ridiculous. To change your backswing in the middle of the season is like learning to throw darts and you’ve only learnt the backswing. And of course, this didn’t fit, so I started hitting it everywhere, everything went 44
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wrong. I started playing badly, really badly. In that 80’s media time, I got murdered, and those were the dark days as I call them. I was beating balls like you couldn’t believe. I went through the rest of the season and then went to Florida to hit balls with him. He was at this little place called Greenleaf somewhere south of Orlando in the middle of a forest and hit hundreds and thousands of golf balls a day. I went through all of that in the dark days. I lost sponsors through that but, amazingly, I kept my belief and determination. I don’t know how. I guess I could thank my mum for the determination to keep going and finally came out of it in Spring 1987. Do you think that experience contributed to making you such a steely competitor? SNF: I’m an only child and went to hit loads of balls on the practice ground on my own and been happy as a sandboy all day long. I could entertain myself, me and my imaginary friends, Jack, Arnold, Lee and Gary, and go off and play against them. In that era, you had to look after yourself, and it was tough. Money was tight and to have your room when you were out on tour was deemed as a luxury rather than sharing. We had to start off sharing, which my dad thought was important. I went off when it was still in that era where you would go to the HKGOLFER.COM
Faldo chats with his caddie Ryan Shaw on the first green during the 2005 Masters
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school was to go out and win. It’s very different now. You cannot win and, if you have a good character, you can probably earn £10 million without winning a tournament, but you are marketable. You are flying privately to every event, whatever car you want. So, if you win, it doesn’t change your life. But back then, I had to defend myself against Seve and Greg, plus it was the only way I knew how to play. My other defence in all of that was that I thought the best way to play was to head down and blinkers on and that’s how I felt. I even felt if I bounced out of that to react to somebody or something, it upset me, and it shouldn’t have because I had a steel trap of a mind. So that was the Faldo golf mode, head down blinkers on. How did this single-mindedness come to bear in the Ryder Cup, which, of course, brought out some of the most amazing performances of your career? SNF: The Ryder Cup is a team of two. You’re 12 in a team room, and all get on, which we did because it was a fantastic atmosphere, and everybody was pulling for each other. But when you go out to play, it’s a team of two. It’s you and your partner, and your two caddies against those two guys. That and you’re playing for a point, no prize money, so it was sheer guts. If you didn’t walk to that first tee thinking there was a way to win, you shouldn’t have been walking to the tee, especially if you weren’t feeling good. But if you were feeling great, you wanted to get to the first tee and get on with it. I’ve walked many times to that tee, and you’re not playing good, but you’ve got to muscle through it and find a way to make it happen. So that’s why the Ryder cup has this sheer, raw competitiveness spirit which makes it so fantastic. I knew it was so important that you had to win your singles on Sunday as well, and obviously, I loved the Ryder cup because of that. I know I let my guard down and Seve let his guard down, and you helped everybody. If anybody wanted a putting lesson or you saw someone’s’ swing a little off, you’re going to say so. The atmosphere was great in that era when HK GOLFER・APR 2018
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bar at the end of the round, but I would go to the practice range instead, as I wasn’t deemed one of the lads. Another interesting thing from that era was what we called, ‘keeping it close to your chest’. My dad told me when he played for England that Eric Bristow didn’t stay in the England hotel. He stayed in his one down the road. He said the day they know everything about me is the day they will beat me. Back at that time, I took it and said, “OK, that works for him, that’s interesting”. You kept your cards close to your chest and put your barriers up in some way. I think everybody did it: Seve, Greg and all of us did. The other thing I talk about is that to change your lifestyle then you had to win. My first goal was to turn left on the plane into first class; it was my financial goal. Then I wanted to buy my first house, but you have to win to do this. You win £5,000, and the biggest prize then was £10,000 on the PGA. I won 5 times for £100,000 in 1983. I made the 1977 Ryder cup team with £7,000. Way back then, buying your first house was I think £60,000. My dad put in £20,000, and I was thinking, how many times have I got to win to get £40,000 after tax? If you wanted a Mercedes car, you had to go and win. Same goes for a family and children; the only way to put them into private
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Can the Faldo Series become an event of the same magnitude as the Ryder/Solheim Cup in 20 years’ time?
we started to turn things around in 83, 85, 87 and 89. That was the run that changed the whole course of the Ryder Cup about.
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When you reflect back on your playing career, what stands out the most? SNF: What I’m most proud of is achieving my goal of winning Majors. You prepare for the Majors. The first Major you win, you feel there’s something in the air. You get a sense. I said a couple months before my first one at Muirfield, after I won in Spain and the rebuild had come good, I said to myself, “Oh I need to win one more, so I am ready for the Open”. Then, I got this sense and said to myself, “No, you’re alright. You’re ready to win the Open”. I had all of these great visualisations and images beforehand. The strongest one was sitting at the end of it and thinking, I won’t be packing Sunday night as I’ll be sitting at breakfast with the Claret Jug doing the BBC welcome to Muirfield. That was great. My first Masters was a weird one. I arrived playing well, but I couldn’t finish anything off. I would get an eight at the wrong time and end up 40th or 50th, but I was playing good. I was on the putting green, and Jack’s always nice, he asked, “How you doing, how you playing?” I said: “Well, I’m playing good Jack, but I keep screwing up every week. I don’t know whether to let it happen or make it happen.” So, Jack said: “I know exactly what you mean,” and just walks off. I wanted to say, “Jack fill in the blank, which one is it?” But I guess I let it happen. I know that as I was going down the 10th hole, after 27 holes of the tournament and leading by three, and I tried to make it happen. I had shot 6-under the first 27 and then 9-over for the next 27. Then I shot the crazy 65 on Sunday, and I win the Masters, bang. After that, what I’m proud of, in 1990, I forget about defending the Masters and instead tried to win another one. “Come on, you can do it,” I said to myself. And so, I did. My iron shots were amazing, and that put me on a hell of a run. I won that, hit the hole at the US Open [missing out on the spot in the playoff by a single shot], and I went to St Andrews on a mission to win there after 46
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that. I also went to Muirfield in 92’ with the intention to win because I was World No.1, feeling good and had just won three majors, which is different to just thinking, I feel good this week. But 1990 is the proudest year of my career. It’s different to walk down the fairway with the intention to win, even more so with the intention to win at a Major and I did that throughout that year. Who is standing out for you at the moment in world golf? SNF: Wow, the top end is pretty good, and they all shuffle around. When they’re on it’s a flip of a coin. For my TV role, when Spieth is off, I look at why he is off, maybe a technical thing. Same if Rory is off, maybe it’s because there is no spring in his step and the emotional side. Jason Day? Physically he can be off. We look to see where their weaknesses are. Not in a negative way but just to see where they are different. Rory had an incredible run, four Majors in 5 minutes and now the next one is going to be really hard work to get across the line. Now we have Justin Thomas hot in a role against Dustin Johnson and some youngsters coming through. Tommy Fleetwood for Europe and Hatton who will be new names for the Ryder Cup. HKGOLFER.COM
Not many golf courses have so many different visual or environmental changes like Laguna Golf La˘ ng Cô designed by Sir Nick Faldo
Tough Course? SNF: Yeah that golf course can play tough especially in September with a big old bit of European wind which could play in our favour. We have a really good backbone which is the most important thing, and then hopefully you have a few rookies who have a blinder. The Faldo Series has been something that has materialised over the past few years. How far do you want to take that and where do you want to go next? SNF: Well, things are going well. We’ve done HKGOLFER.COM
20-plus years of the series and have taken it all over the world, literally global. And I’ve created this new event, the Major Champions Invitational, so I’m chuffed about that. I’ve made something happen, brought together Major Champions with a real vehicle. Rory will pick players from his foundation, as will Adam Scott in Australia and Annika Sorenstam from all four corners of the world - the same as I will do from my series and my series winners. With this event, we Major Champions have a cool opportunity to say to junior golfers, “I have my eyes on you”. So, this kid can be thinking, wow, Adam Scott thinks I’m a good golfer. We’ve created this event, and I hope it’s successful and everyone says they want to come back next year and that it becomes instantly recognisable, which it should do with all the media attention because of its uniqueness. I hope that the kids who win people will know that boy and that girl won the Major Champions Invitational, they are off and running in their golf careers. I said to myself when you think of it, Samuel Ryder started a pretty darn good even, and he was a seed merchant in St Albans, and Karsten Solheim created the women’s version, so why can’t there be a Faldo event of that magnitude in 20 years’ time. The Faldo Series has taken place in Hong Kong for several years, how important has this been for golf out there? SNF: Tom Philips was my series director, and he carried it through to out there. The great thing about my event is that the kids want to play it and are motivated to, and this is particularly true of Hong Kong. The most gratifying thing to me is hearing about young golfers who travel because they want to make the teams across Asia. It’s a similar story in Europe where my son Matthew manages the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany and Slovakia. The great thing is, if the kids don’t qualify for one event, they jump into their car and travel to the next. The kids want to win and want to come to the Grand Final, and that’s the best compliment I can get. CONTINUED ON PAGE 74... HK GOLFER・APR 2018
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With the Ryder Cup soon, do you think there has been a bit of a shift in how the US seems to have a new vibrancy in the team? SNF: What they have found is partnerships. Amazingly, when Phil Mickelson and Keegan Bradley had their great run together and won 3 out of their 4 matches, they were second on the list of greatest partnerships, with Arnold Palmer and Gardner Dickinson being top back in the 60’s. But that was back at Medinah. Now the USA have found some new partnerships. But Europe has a great backbone and are pretty balanced again after people thought it might be one-sided after the Presidents Cup. Paris in September could be 60-odd degrees, a bit of rain and croissants flying everywhere. They want 65,000 people in there for 4 matches so that it will be busy.
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"I’m very lucky I get treated like royalty. This is almost like my own private hotel."
...CONTINUED FROM PAGE 47 It doesn’t look like you have stopped with the golf course design here at Laguna Lăng Cô. It looks like a continuous push for the end goal. SNF: With this one, I started coming back for all sorts of reasons. Either to do something business-wise here and then we kept coming back for the golf, and then we brought the Faldo Series here, so I’ve been coming back to this location almost twice a year for about six or seven years, and we can keep adjusting the golf course. Keep fine-tuning. This thing is alive, and you don’t know when you put the golf course in what grass will grow and what won’t. The jungle does this and that and all sorts of things. What features stand out on this particular course? SNF: The coolest thing is how unique it is. When you tour it, you start in rice fields, and the great thing about this is that it’s bringing it all back to the vision we had. It’s a tough project. It’s money, it’s time and working hours, but we are bringing to life those first four holes through the rice fields. Then you go through a bit of jungle, so that’s different. Then you pop out on what was a lovely sandbar, a ridge that we placed a green on top of, very Aussie-style. Then we have the beach, so that’s another environment. Not many golf courses have so many different visual or environmental changes which I think gives Laguna La ˘ ng Cô good memorability. I would like people to be able to remember each hole. They all have their character. Can you give us any insight into plans that you have or any changes? SNF: Just tinkering and putting new bunkers in. We’re putting a new bunker in on the third. They’ve done a great job of clearing it out, and it’s really come alive. It was too difficult previously. There was rough that was like a wire brush, so I said: “Blitz it! Get rid of everything and give the golfers a chance. Blitz it all out the back of 5, 6 and 7 and make them look cool”. T. We actually might build another fun par-3 74
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left of number 9, so we could shut down a hole with conditioning in mind from time to time, and golfers can play another fun little par-3 along the beach which would be very good. Do you feel quite at home here now at Laguna Lăng Cô? SNF: Yeah, I enjoy it here. I’m very lucky I get treated like royalty. This is almost like my own private hotel (the Banyan Tree, Angsana and Laguna Park residences). It’s really cool to come back to waiters and waitresses who know what I want. I can say, “My usual please,” even though I’ve been gone for six months. The quality of life here is pretty darn good. I’ve got a beautiful villa on top of the rocks up there, you’ve got the spa appointments, and you can come here and switch off. What are you going to do to switch off when you’re here? SNF: If I get time then the spa, I love to spa. I have a busy season with TV, and it’s all go right now. I’ve already planned my month in Montana for September, so that I can disappear. Golfing, fishing and biking. Lots of scenery and watch the sun rise and set. For more information about golf and residences at Laguna Lăng Cô, please visit www.lagunalangco.com HKGOLFER.COM