FanHouse CurtisStrange

On Monday, hours after losing the British Open in a playoff to Stewart Cink, Tom Watson (don't know if you heard, but he's 59 years old) hopped a flight to make the short trip from Turnberry, Scotland to Sunningdale, England to prepare for the Senior British Open.

Last year, then 53-year-old Greg Norman logged a third-place finish at the British before tying for fifth at the Senior British. And through the first round, Watson is on a similar path. He's currently tied for sixth, three shots behind leader Fred Funk, after signing for a 67. (Interestingly, Norman also shot 67.)

It's been ten years since Jean Van de Velde imploded on Carnoustie's 72nd hole. He stood on the 18th tee box needing just a double-bogey to become the first Frenchmen to win a major championship since Arnaud Massy in 1907. Roughly 15 minutes and seven excruciating strokes later it was over.

Countdown to Annihilation: the 2008 Ryder Cup is less than a month away. In the coming weeks, American captain Paul Azinger will fill out his roster while trying to avoid another biennial beatdown.

Nick Faldo will captain the Euros; as a six-time major winner and fine Ryder Cup player in his own right, he seems like a perfectly logical choice for the gig. As it turns out, he's anything but. You see, Faldo is a weird dude. I mean really weird.

He's been that way his entire career, but the 1999 Ryder Cup offers the perfect example of how trouble finds Faldo:

[1999 Euro Ryder Cup captain Mark] James and Faldo have had a long running enmity that goes back to the early 1990s when they clashed over the state of European Tour courses, and culminated with James ripping up a good luck letter from Faldo at the 1999 Ryder Cup.

James was supposed to serve as Torrance's vice captain in 2002 but was forced to resign after complaints from Faldo over James' explosive book "Into the Bear Pit."

James isn't the only Brit who's not fond of Faldo. Apparently, it's a kingdom-wide thing. From today's London Times:

I remember thinking that Bobby Knight and Curtis Strange had a lot in common. They were both unqestionably good at what they did, and both usually had sort of a mean, gruff, angry demeanor. They even sort of looked alike.

I remember hearing a few profanities come from his mouth on television before that sort of thing was a big deal, too. From GolfDigest.com:

When Curtis Strange was the No. 1 player in the world back in the 1980s, he frequently griped about being fined. Soon after cable networks began televising first- and second-round play, Strange received a letter telling him he was being fined for calling either himself or his golf ball a name during the opening round of the Players Championship. His response was to call the tour office and say, "Are you telling me I can't say ---- on Thursdays anymore?"

You can at my house, buddy.

As for Hubert Green, he was a similar character. He once received a death threat while playing on tour, and, as relayed by Jason Sobel at ESPN.com, this was how he chose to deal with it.

"We had three options," Green recalled on Wednesday. "We could stop play, clear the course, I could play without a gallery. They could stop play and we come out the next day and finish up with [metal] detectors, and everybody that came in was secure. They had some undercover police officers in the gallery, not in uniforms, and we could continue play and they would be watching galleries. I said, 'Let's play.' "

Easier said than done, of course. Green remembers thinking about those extenuating circumstances while trying to make birdie on 15. "The pin was in the front. I got over the putt. I'm thinking, 'Am I supposed to be shot?' Hit the putt. Didn't hear anything. I said, 'Chicken.' "