End of an era for Euro major winners

It is truly the end of an era - a golden era.

Nick Faldo, Seve Ballesteros, Ian Woosnam, Bernhard Langer and Sandy Lyle, the quintet who carried European golf to unprecedented heights, will all be outsiders looking in when the Ryder Cup takes place in Boston in four weeks' time.

Instead it is out with the old, in with the new for the defence of the trophy. Tiger Woods, David Duval and their fellow multi-millionaires will be facing a side containing seven uncapped players and three more who have appeared just once.

Only Colin Montgomerie and Jose Maria Olazabal can truly be called experienced members of the team, as Lee Westwood, Darren Clarke and Jesper Parnevik have never played a match on American soil.

The loss of the 'Fab Five,' however, is to be mourned. While it may be ancient in many sports, 40 in golf is not old.

Mark O'Meara won two majors last season at 41, there are three other fortysomethings (Payne Stewart, Hal Sutton and Tom Lehman) in the American line-up, 54-year-old Hale Irwin was on the leaderboard at the US PGA championship a fortnight ago and a 58-year-old Jack Nicklaus was sixth in the Masters last year.

But the men responsible for making the Ryder Cup what it is today - one of the world's biggest sporting attractions - have become shadows of their former selves.

Lyle, first of the five to slump, is now 313rd in the world and has not won for nearly seven years. Who would have thought when he triumphed in the Masters in 1988 that he would not play any of the next six Ryder Cups?

Ballesteros is an even more horrific 479th in the rankings. When he gave up the cup captaincy after the triumph at Valderrama two years ago he said it was to try to win back his place in the side.

Last night you had to go all the way down to 105th position in the points table to find his name (Lyle was even lower at 126th) and this season he has made only four halfway cuts in 14 starts. His last victory was over four years ago.

Faldo is 190th in the world and has now gone almost 30 months without a solo success.

It still hurt him like hell to be told by James last Friday that his trip to Munich for the final qualifying event was in a pointless exercise unless he won, but the writing was on the wall.

Faldo, who had his sixth major victory only three years ago, has had just one top 10 finish all season.

Woosnam might have made it but for the broken knuckle sustained playing with his children in June, but the little Welshman's last victory was 26 months ago.

Langer's exclusion was the one which surprised. Although he has not lifted a trophy since the week after the last Ryder Cup, he finished 14th in the race for places and in a side so inexperienced looked odds-on to be named as a wild card.

James had other ideas, though, and in naming Scot Andrew Coltart brought the curtain down on the glory years of the 'Fab Five' in the Ryder Cup.

Faldo and Langer's performance together and alone at the 1983 match in Florida - they both won their singles after winning three of their four games the first two days - signalled that the American grip on the cup was weakening.

Faldo did not win a point in 1985 at The Belfry, but the other four were the backbone of the side which won so emphatically and when Olazabal linked up with Ballesteros in 1987 it was probably Europe's finest hour. Or rather three days.

The match was in Jack Nicklaus's home town Columbus, on the course that he built (Muirfield Village) and he was the captain.

But Faldo and Woosnam dropped only half a point in four games together, Lyle and Langer won all three and the two Spaniards three out of four.

More celebrating came back at The Belfry in 1989, though there was no Lyle by then. And again at Oak Hill four years ago and again at Valderrama two years ago, with Ballesteros not playing, but dynamic and inspirational as captain.

Now they are no more - at least for this time. All five seem certain to go on battling, seeking the cure for their ills.

Whether they can do it, however, remains to be seen.