Heineken Classic: Nick Faldo is so determined to make one more Ryder Cup team that yesterday, at the Royal Melbourne course, he consented to be trussed up in tape and bound around by wires in yet another attempt to find extra length and greater accuracy.

Perhaps no man in the history of golf has given more time to the game's gimmicks. In the past he has submitted to detailed medical examinations of every conceivable muscle that could be involved in the swing; had heart and respiration rates measured and analysed; and been videoed from half a dozen angles at once.

His former coach, David Leadbetter, used to lie awake at nights trying to dream up new ways of quenching his man's insatiable thirst for knowledge.

And yet despite it all Faldo never quite became the golfer he wished to be. Although 6ft 3ins, 15 and a half stone and in magnificent physical condition he never became a long hitter and has always resented that fact.

That he won six majors is a tribute to some excellent iron play and, in his prime, a short game and putting stroke that simply could not be bettered.

This week Faldo was preparing for the Heineken Classic, which starts today here, and could not resist utilising the latest technological aid to appear on the practice ground. Operated by a company called Golf Bio Dynamics it is essentially a computer connected by sensors to several parts of the body during the swing.

Yesterday, Scottish biomechanist Ryan Lumsden connected Faldo to the machine, saying: "We're analysing what's moving where, when and how in the golf swing. Then we quantify it and from there we look at the aerodynamics, their coordination, the timing and the clubhead speed, which affects power."

One of the first things detected when Faldo took a swing was that his head moved up by some four to six inches during the course of it. A watching Ken Brown, the former Ryder Cup player turned television commentator, was amazed though that when this was pointed out to Faldo, he was immediately able to correct it.

Faldo finished second in this event - to Ernie Els - last year and another such result would do him fine in terms of the Ryder Cup team. "That's my number one aim," said Faldo. "I'm doing everything possible - technical, physical, mental, physiological. I'm attacking it the best I can."

Guardian Service