Casey - Don't blame Nick

Casey and Faldo

The putts we made at the K Club (in 2006) were outrageous - putts going in all over the place - and that's what they did to us this time.

Paul Casey
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Paul Casey insists that captain Nick Faldo was not to blame for Europe's Ryder Cup defeat in Valhalla last month.

Faldo was criticised for a number of decisions before and during the match, including his wildcard selections, leaving Lee Westwood and Sergio Garcia out of the Saturday foursomes and the risky strategy he employed for the 12 singles matches on the Sunday in a bid to overcome a 9-7 deficit.

Casey, however, has joined the list of players that have since leapt to Faldo's defence, insisting the Englishman did everything in his power to secure an unprecedented fourth consecutive European success.

"It didn't matter who it was, if we didn't win, they were going to get it in the neck," he said.

"Nick's Nick. He tried his hardest, he poured his heart out into it and whether it was everybody's cup of tea, the way he approached things, that's their opinion.

"He cares about it, we care about it and it's the way it turned out. I feel sorry for him because I think he's taken a pretty hard rap."

Casey also revealed he had recently contacted Faldo to refute suggestions he had undermined his captaincy.

"I spoke to him a couple of weeks ago. There was a nice rumour going around that I was apparently unhappy with Nick and I was threatening to walk out of the Ryder Cup team," added the 31-year-old.

Rumour

"That was a rumour I had heard circling around various things and that is complete and utter rubbish. I actually called him and said 'have you heard this rumour'? He said, 'yeah, I've heard'. Nobody knew where it came from so I've spoken to him.

"It's malicious and it didn't get printed. I threatened legal action if that came out because that's just not true. I've had enough of that stuff."

As for the defeat itself, Casey added: "I don't think there's been enough credit given to the US for playing very, very good golf.

"The putts we made at the K Club (in 2006) were outrageous - putts going in all over the place - and that's what they did to us this time," he concluded.

"In my match against Hunter Mahan, he hit his putt on 17 and I thought 'hello, I've got a chance of winning this match from being down', but it hits the back of the hole and goes in when it was probably going 15 feet by.

Laugh

"He knew it, I knew it, we both had a laugh about it - as much as you could - down the 18th fairway. It could have been different, so that's the way the players feel about it. There's been a lot of criticism about what Faldo allegedly didn't do but it's done.

"We see it differently as players being in that team room - ultimately we've got to get the ball in the hole and make the putts and we didn't necessarily do that in Valhalla. But I loved the experience playing for Nick."