Tell me about Nick Faldo............

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Apologies if this has been done

He was a bit before my time but I remember his name being synonymous with golf throughout my childhood. If I was to think of golfers from that era (I would watch golf on TV but never really played until a couple of years ago) I would think of Faldo, Woosie, Langher and Seve. As for the last three I admire them very much and I am still fond of Woosie and Langher on the Seniors tours.
It is funny to think that you like the personalities that your father likes. I much preferred Jimmy White to Stephen Hendry as although Hendry was from my home town my father said he was a d**k and this was also he reasoning with Faldo. Was it the arrogance? Was it rooting for the underdog? I’m not really sure but there is something about Faldo's personality I really can't stand even although he holds my utmost respect and he could fairly be described as a British Sporting Legend.

Does anybody have any opinions of Sir Nick either good or bad?
Would it be fair to say that the most similar British golfing personality around today would be Luke?
Why is it that the likes of Westie are much more popular in the golfing fraternity. On this point I would say that I am a Lee Westwood fan as he seems an all round good lad.

Does Nicky Faldo get a raw deal or was my father right?

"Possibly true Diggers, but I'd hazard a guess that those same people think the capital city of England is the same for Scotland and Wales."

It is.

George...I typed that in but thought that it would just go over everyones head.
In Scotland it is the people and not the land that our Kings and Queens rule.

George - With all due respect, it's really not all very well saying Americans are insular and don't know what's going on the big wide world. Plenty do ... and that's something I know for an absolute fact. And, plenty don't ... something I also know for an absolute fact. My strong suspicion is that if you were to cross section the US population by eduction and relative income levels, you would find stark similarities between our two respective populations.

Shotrock wrote:George - With all due respect, it's really not all very well saying Americans are insular and don't know what's going on the big wide world. Plenty do ... and that's something I know for an absolute fact. And, plenty don't ... something I also know for an absolute fact. My strong suspicion is that if you were to cross section the US population by eduction and relative income levels, you would find stark similarities between our two respective populations.

I don't think anyone would deny that SR, but Americans' are well known for saying some truly stupid things, however they can at least blame their education system for their lack of geographical knowledge and what goes on around the world.

Super (or anyone else not living in the US)

Without using google or wiki

Who is the US treasury secretary?

Who is chairman of the Federal Reserve?

These are two very important positions in the world economy and any non insular individual should know the answers.

Explain what each organisation does if you are truly globally minded?

Mac, don't be so ridiculous. Those are not things which your average person SHOULD know.

Do you know the answer without looking at your favourite site Wiki? No of course you don't, but then again the vast majority of Americans wouldn't know either.

However, I would expect EVERYONE to have at least heard of the majority of every other country in the world, and be able to name the capital of all the major ones, whilst also be able to place them on a map.
American or British there is no excuse for that.
I'd also like to see Modern History taught better. Too many people say that America won WW2, while many young people these days know nothing about 39-45.

George - I just checked my information and my mistake was to say the UK. As I think you had probably figured out, I should have said England. England = 50,000 sq. miles, Texas = 270,000 sq. miles. Texas population didn't come into it.
England's population is about 51 million while the US is about 306 million (6 times), so it was not an attempt to make "erroneous comparisons", after all it is simple enough to check.
Also, I referenced "both sides" and did not suggest that Americans are any more insular than, for example, Brits.
It is the idea of that density of people (and the associated traffic) that is the eye opener - for both.

SR- One thing I have learned since living in the US is that NOBODY has a monopoly on saying stupid things. To quote your word, I have heard some "cringeworthy" statements from UK sources that have made me squirm with embarassment and do a quick check that no American was close enough to hear.
There are fundamental differences between our two education systems, and I suspect you actually know little of the US system, but I think Shotrock is right in that the end product is closer than you would like. As I've said before, we are all different, but not that much.

Gt, I've no personal experience of the American education system but have known several golfers who have gone through scholarships and some of the things they have been asked by supposedly college educated peers really are quite unbelievable. Such as do you have cd players, or do you have tv, or 'where did you learn to speak such great English?', or even where is Scotland?
Of course Americans don't have a monopoly on stupidity, I've seen plenty examples of other nationalities in the UK, however it seems to get highlighted more from an American perspective.

Speaking of Americans and their knowledge of foreign things, I always think of the movie. "War of the Worlds" when Tom Cruise tells his son the machines came from somewhere else and his son replied, "Like Europe?"

To be fair we refer to America all the time to represent the USA which isn't really accurate. Again I doubt most Brits have very much idea at all of the layout of say South America.

What nationality would the good people from USA call themselves then?

lorus59 wrote:Speaking of Americans and their knowledge of foreign things, I always think of the movie. "War of the Worlds" when Tom Cruise tells his son the machines came from somewhere else and his son replied, "Like Europe?"

Wasn't his son a teenager in that abomination of a film? I wouldn't think too badly of a teenage character saying that.

It's hard to preach when we have, say, Stacey Solomon becoming some sort of success (how on Earth has this been allowed to happen????). Watched her on an episode of Celebrity Mastermind the other day (mistake!) and nearly fell off my chair at a) her lack of even simplistic general knowledge and b) the fact she thought it was funny that she was such a dolt.

Are we going back to Diggers' favourite programme?
It would be a good opportunity to use that programme as some sort of 'Day of the Triffids' like vehicle where everyone watching is put under some sort of hypnotic spell never to bother anyone else ever again whilst the contestants are taken away and shot.

Maybe so but the fact of the matter is that there are similarly thick people on both sides of the Pond.

navyblueshorts wrote:Maybe so but the fact of the matter is that there are similarly thick people on both sides of the Pond.

Amen to that.
Oops! Sorry.