And so the major season ends for another year. 2007’s big four will be remembered for a variety of reasons. Zach Johnson, Angel Cabrera and Padraig Harrington clinched their first major wins. If they are to be breakthrough wins only time will tell.
But at the USPGA it was a return to form. Tiger was the [...]
As young Patrick Harrington asked his daddy if he could put ladybirds in the Claret Jug he had no idea that eyes of the world were on him.
But as daddy celebrated, one man knew only too well that he had strode onto a global stage and blown his lines. Sergio Garcia looked like he wanted [...]
Sports and marketing. The curse of the modern era. The English Premiership is the “Greatest Show on Earth!” Lewis Hamilton is the “British Tiger Woods.” So it was inevitable that the last month would be Scotland’s “Summer of Golf!”
No matter that any use of the word “summer” is somewhat ironic with the weather pretty much [...]
I’m sitting staring out the window prevented, by a deadline, from enjoying this rare blast of sunshine out on the fairway – or out on the sun terrace, chilled drink in my hand.
It strikes me, however, that this is the weather that I associate with the Open – the weather that accompanied long hours in [...]
The end, when it eventually came, was anti-climatic, messy, an affront to the irresistible force of the career that came before.
Seve had finally held his hands up and acknowledged that nobody, not even him, could fight off the ticking of the clock. In reality we knew it had been over for some time. Out of [...]
We’re a competitive lot us Scots. Proud as well. On the course wagers to “liven” things up lead to feuds, gamesmanship and, in extreme cases, divorce. Off the course we fall over each other as we claim “firsts” and “oldests.” Oldest course, first links course, oldest club, oldest tea lady. It’s all up for grabs.
Now [...]
He’s fallen out with galleries, players and pundits. He’s promised us the world and fluffed his delivery. And, despite himself, he’s been a bit of a pompous twit at times.
And yet, and yet. For me, there will only be one player I truly want to win the US Open – the one player in the [...]
With the Women’s British Open being played at St Andrews this year the tournament will, again, garner the sort of headlines that the mainstream media seem loathe to give women’s golf throughout the rest of the year.
Yet it is often widely forgotten that women and golf have been closely connected in Scotland for centuries.
Scotland’s [...]
World class amateur golf returns to Northern Ireland in September as home grown talent Rory McIlroy leads Britain and Ireland’s Walker Cup charge.
Unfortunately restrictions at the Royal County Down course mean that only 10,000 tickets will be available: mainly through golf clubs in Ireland, the UK and America.
That’s probably a bit of a cunning ruse [...]
It always happens, doesn’t it? Things keep getting in the way of starting the spring golf season.
Food needs to be bought, deadlines need to be made, golf on the TV has to be watched. The list stacks up and actually getting out on the course always seems to find itself at the bottom.
Until you find [...]
Another major. Another misfire. The high hopes of Henrik Stenson et al squashed. The European drought continued in Augusta. A drought that increasingly looks like a famine.
We’ve been here before. There were 18 long years between Max Faulkner clinching the British Open and Tony Jacklin replicating the feat. Another nine years passed from Jacklin’s US [...]
Do greenkeepers dream of anything other than divots and bad weather? If they do then Gordon Mckie is surely living the greenkeeper’s equivalent of winning the Masters and the Open on the same day.
Because Gordon has just been appointed head greenkeeper at the Old Course in St. Andrews – giving him control of the most [...]
It was around the dawn of the new millennium that a new golfing term was coined. Suddenly golf courses across the globe were trying to master the art of “Tiger-proofing.” That is golf courses were trying to make the game more difficult for the new breed of golfer – a breed personified by the Tiger [...]
Modern golfers: dedicated to practice, prepared by fitness trainers and sports psychologists, advised by caddies that know the yardage of every water sprinkler and divot. Nothing is left to chance.
And yet it seems golfers are as given to superstition as the most hopeless weekend hacker.
From Tiger’s red shirt on Sundays (and yes it began as [...]
Beware viewers in Britain currently enjoying the BBC coverage of the Masters from Augusta. Rejoice viewers in Britain currently throwing things at the television set whenever Peter Alliss speaks.
The never ending merry go-round of TV sports coverage has seen Sky usurped by the Irish newcomer Setanta Sports in the race for USPGA coverage and the [...]