Golf: Tweets not in flavour with Cup captains

IAN POULTER insists European Ryder Cup captain Colin Montgomerie has not banned his players from using Twitter during the tournament at Celtic Manor this week.

Montgomerie said yesterday that the recent controversy involving England cricket star Kevin Pietersen had prompted him to ask players to refrain from using the social networking site, a move also made by opposite number Corey Pavin.

Pietersen was fined for reacting angrily to being left out of the one day and Twenty20 squads and later issued an apology for his language.

Montgomerie said: "I've just asked my team not to and they have said 'OK - that's fine, we'll start again tweetering or twittering - having never done it - on Monday, October 4. Kevin Pietersen's error changed my view as to that."

Prolific tweeter Poulter, however, said: "For the record, Colin hasn't banned Twitter, he has asked to be respectful to the team's privacy." Not that Montgomerie intends to police things to make sure nobody steps out of line.

"It's not a ban because if somebody does it how can you punish someone for it? It's not a ban.

"I'm not mentioning any names. I don't know who Tweets or who doesn't Tweet on our team, so I can't tell you.

"The captain doesn't and whoever does has been asked not to."

United States captain Pavin, who arrived with his side in Cardiff in mid-morning yesterday after an overnight flight from Atlanta, commented: "I think we talked about it as a team and we thought it best not to do it.

"We need to focus on playing and working on preparations and getting ready to play the Ryder Cup.

"As Colin said, Team USA, whatever they would like to do, Tweeting or Facebooking or whatever it may be, they have the opportunity to do that next week - and for the rest of their lives!"

Last year's Open champion Stewart Cink, one of Pavin's four wildcards, is the chief tweeter in the American line-up with 1,201,022 followers.