Sorry. You didn't make it. Get over it.

Nearly everyone has one of those awful experiences as a kid. You are standing in a big throng of kids and there is some kind of sports event about to get started.

Two captains are picked and one by one, they select people from the throng until just a handful of kids are left. If you're one of those kids you just want one of two things to happen to you.

1. You want to be picked next so that no matter what happens, you are not the last kid left there waiting to be picked. That's so bad that it's undescribable. That stays with you for life, on some level, I guess.

or

2. You want a meteor to smash down on the planet with such intensity that everything is wiped out and all thoughts of playing sports are gone immediately.

Option 1 was surely more common in the old days.

Anyway, it's not nice to have to sweat over whether you get picked or not, and it's even worse when you are down to the last few places and someone is definitely going to lose out.

You would think that as we each get older, we'd get some perspective on this most childlike of emotional states. Not so it seems.

Check out this article about Thomas Bjorn. Who is he? He's a golfer who really, really wanted to get into the European Ryder Cup team. He was down to the last three golfers to choose from with just 2 spots left in the team. He was the unlucky guy who didn't make the team.

He's in the news today mouthing off about the guy who picked the team, Ian Woosnam. Some selected quotes:

I'm shocked and have totally lost respect for Ian Woosnam

My relationship with him is completely dead. It looks like he needs to learn how to be a captain

It doesn't look like he is burdened with leadership qualities

OK, so the guy is hurt and obviously really thought he had a good chance of making the team. I don't follow golf so I have no vested interest in this from any angle other than the peculiar nature of the outburst.

It's a shame when people do this, when they shoot off their mouths about something in public without thinking it through.

I'm finding it hard to imagine that too many fellow golfers are reading his words with admiration tonight.

What a shame that he let himself down like this. "Count to ten" they used to say.

I'll add finally that it's not easy being the one that picks the team. Someone is always going to be disappointed and that's difficult to live with too from the other side of the fence. People in this situation always tend to focus on their own situation when of course there is always someone else involved on the other side of the discussion.

Spare a thought for the guy, Ian Woosnam, who had to make the decision and who now finds this "professional" telling anyone who will listen that he, Woosnam, is not "burdened with leadership qualities".

Inglorious.