Sir Nick Faldo is a legendary figure in the game after his incredible success in the majors and, of course, at the Ryder Cup.
Faldo won 43 professional tournaments worldwide including six major championships and he played on 11 Ryder Cup teams, winning 25 points in the process.
The Englishman is the second highest points scorer in the history of the Ryder Cup, behind only Sergio Garcia.
He was extremely insular during his prime and that meant that he wasn’t the most popular of players.
However, after he stopped playing competitively, that all changed. He has been incredibly outspoken about numerous topics in the golfing world.
Faldo often shares his controversial takes about LIV Golf as well as many other aspects of the current game.
It was only six months ago when Faldo actually suggested that LIV golfers have gone soft.
The six-time major champion clearly doesn’t beat about the bush when making his opinions known.
And it appears as though that was the root of the problem at Brookline in 1999.
What Mark James did with Nick Faldo’s good luck letter at the 1999 Ryder Cup
Mark James led his European team to Brookline in 1999 to face the United States.
The Europeans were looking to make it three Ryder Cup wins in a row, and headed into the Sunday singles 10-6 up.
However, the Americans turned things around and won in dramatic fashion by a score of 14.5-13.5.
Despite some of the sensational golf on display at Brookline, the 1999 Ryder Cup was actually remembered most for the controversy caused by the actions of the American players during Justin Leonard’s match against Jose Maria Olazabal.
After Leonard holed a monster putt on the 17th, the American players stormed the green to celebrate with him, in spite of the fact that Olazabal still had a putt to halve the hole.
It really was poor form all round from everyone involved.
In the aftermath of the famous clash, European captain James wrote a book detailing exactly what went down at Brookline.
However, aside from all of his no-nonsense takes about the golf that was played, the most interesting segment came when the topic of Faldo’s good luck letter came up.
In his book, ‘Into The Bear Pit’, James made the candid admission that he discarded Faldo’s letter like a piece of trash.
He said: “My first inclination was to throw it away but I first decided to seek the views of a few other people, including some of the players and everybody’s reaction was the same: bin it. I had no hesitation in accepting their advice.“
That seems incredibly harsh, so what was the reason behind James’ actions?
Why Nick Faldo’s letter was binned at the 1999 Ryder Cup
James’ admission about binning Faldo’s letter was very strange. Why be so openly unappreciative of a well-wishing letter?
Well, the 71-year-old Englishman explained exactly why many years later.
James spoke to Golf Magic in 2023, and revealed the reason why Faldo’s good luck message was binned at Brookline.
“It was felt by myself and others that he was being disingenuous,” he said. “We didn’t want to put his letter on the board with all the other good-luck messages. “Nick sort of screamed and shouted so much in the press about me and who I was picking and stuff, so I just threw it away.”
“What he objected to, and why he started a lot of press stuff, was that he asked me at the start of the week what he had to do to make the team. I told him, and I was honest, I said, ‘even if you win, I probably won’t pick you’. My mistake was probably telling him the truth.“
Whatever James’ reasoning behind disposing of the letter was, it does seem like it was a childish action, and one that was totally unnecessary.
Faldo missed out on a captain’s pick for the 1999 Ryder Cup, and he showed real class by sending the good luck letter to the European team.
For James to simply discard the letter was really poor form, whatever his excuse may be.
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