golfweloveit

Rael Madrid star striker Gareth Bale has built a three hole golf course at his home in Glamorgan, Wales encorporating the best features of his favourite courses around the world.

I shall describe this as succinctly as possible. Because they spent two whole days discussing the subject. Two days? I would have put them on the clock.

There was a summit meeting at St Andrews last week called “Time For Golf”. Slow play was discussed from every possible angle. European Tour player Stephen Gallacher spoke the most sense. He saw slow play as a form of cheating. He said fines didnt work, penalty shots were the way forward. Royal and Ancient are bringing out a slow play manual.

Other notables said players take too long because they think too much and are overcoached.

I would also add that some caddies talk far too much and encourage their player to have a stewards enquiry over all the variables before playing the shot because they enjoy a good chat.

That’s it, in three paragraphs. Onto the next hole.

Following a meeting of Wentworth members on Friday a letter from Foreign Secretary Phillip Hammond MP was made public. Mr Hammond is also the local MP for Runnymede and Weybridge which covers Wentworth. Referring to Wentworth’s new owners decision to greatly increase the membership fees and introduce a debenture system he calls this “very disappointing behaviour”. He says he will be seeking a meeting with representatives of Reignwood Group, the Chinese conglomerate who bought Wentworth Club for £135 million last year. He states that discussions will focus on any planning intentions for the  club and stress the need to engage and maintain good relations with the local community if they wish to seek planning permissions in the future.

Another thing which has angered current Wentworth members is the failure to lower the Chinese flag outside of the clubhouse to half mast in respect of the Paris terror attacks. The flag of St George has been lowered.

Mr Hammond’s diplomatic skills will be needed in any meetings with representatives from Reignwood, but also in conveying to the current membership the limits on what can be done. It is after all Reignwood’s private property to do with as they wish, although within its walls a whole community is about to be broken apart and a long history wiped away.

Matt Jones, who won the Houston Open on the PGA Tour this year, held off a charge from defending champion Jordan Spieth to win the Australian Open today. Taking a three shot lead into the final day Jones, 35, began a round of ups and downs beginning bogey, double bogey, pulling back two birdies on the front nine begore making a triple bogey on the ninth, Hr rallied on the back nine to finish -8, forcing Spieth to make an eagle putt to make a playoff, which Spieth missed to finish joint second with Adam Scott.

Round of the day came from Australian Rod Pampling who made a 60 foot eagle putt on 18 for a course record 61. He, Jones and Nick Cullen, who finished fifth, gain places in next year’s Open Championship at Royal Troon.

Ahead of the Australian Open this week Adam Scott reiterated that he’s still not very interested in representing Australia in the Olympic Games.

He’s referred to the golf event as an exhibiton and hasn’t decided yet whethet he may be on holiday at the time. This stance is unusual for Scott, who is not one to court controversy.

“Whether I win an Olympic medal or not wont define my career. It’s nothing I’ve aspired to do. It’s all about the four majors and that’s the way it should stay for golf. To go and play an exhibition event down there to meet some athletes in other sports in the middle of a major season is not what people in other professional sports would do. I dont believe a lot of sports belong there. Its the pinacle of some sports. Golf doesnt need to be in the Olympics “.

Scott also criticised the 72 hole strokeplay format saying it was a missed opportunity to be creative and introduce a mixed team competiton.

The Australian Olympic Committee spokesman said they want people who genuinely want to be there, such as Jason Day who is committed to going, Jordan Spieth, qualified to play for the United States is excited enough to say he co siders it a fifth major.

Perhaps Scott would rather golf’s space be given to squash, who controversially have been omitted to join in the Olympics, yet again.

We know. He’d rather go surfing.

They sure have a lot of them. Jim Furyk, Steve Stricker, Tom Lehman and now Tiger Woods are vice captains to Davis Love for the 2016 Ryder Cup. And there’s still room for one more. All those thoughts about what to do, following all that discussion about what not to do on the US Ryder Cup Task Force. It’s all like watching Mickelson discect a shot woth Bones, his faithful caddie. Too much talk, and not enough action. Davis Love needs to take charge and be in charge. But he’s already said something that makes me wonder he’s not a very good judge of character. On announcing Tiger’s appointment he said:

“Woods is a team guy”.

No he isn’t!

Year after year when team competitons come around Woods has demonstrated that he isn’t a team player. His record in  team competitions is only average and he is the definitive play for himself athlete. Unless, that is that Tiger had had some kind of epiphany since the Task Force. Love said you could see how excited he was at the President’s Cup (which was slightly exciting for the first time ever) and he wants to be Ryder Cup Captain.

Well that would be a good one. Almost as good as when Phil and Amy become Captain in a few years time. There are players who can play but not manage a team and Mickelson and Woods are going to both find it difficult to manage the teams. Entertaining  to watch from our side of the Atlantic though.

Rory McIlroy silenced the critics who said he shouldn’t have been competing by winning the DP World Tour Championship and his third Race To Dubai title in four years. He proved once again what an outstanding competitor he is by the way he refused to buckle under the pressure put on him by the excellent Andy Sullivan and by surviving a nerve jangling experience on the 17th hole.

Two shots ahead on the short 17th, McIlroy dramatically hit his tee shot into the water 50 yards to the right, but the  magnificently hold a 40 ft bogey putt which helped him win the tournament by one shot, his fourth tournament win of the year. “It’s the longest putt I’ve ever made for a bogey, it couldn’t have come at a better time, it’s the best bogey of my career. It seems the more pressure I’m under the better I putt, which is a nice thing to have”.

McIlroy’s driving was also  peerless. Consistently 320 yards off the tee and usually accurately on the fairway. It is a sight to behold to watch him with his driver. Held back this year by an ankle injury which stopped what could have been an incredible year by a couple of months, he has told the press that mid season football is out for the forseeable future, calling his decision to play “silly”. The World No 3 realises that he can’t be complacent “I had a big lead in the World Rankings and then Jordan and Jason came right up behind me”. He goes into a long Christmas break vowing to come back healthier and stronger.

I also enjoyed again watching Andy Sullivan in contention. He brings a joy to the sport with his vocal band of supporters and his own great temperament he would  make an impact in the Ryder Cup, should he qualify. He was respectful of McIlroy, telling his caddie that he expected a player of his calibre to hole the putt on 17 and saying it was awesome to go head to head with someone of his quality. But with three wins himself this season Andy Sullivan needs to wake up some self belief that he can consistently hold his own in the highest company and not be awed by anyone. Once that mental notch up has been made, then he’ll be ready to take on any American.

You have to admire his boldness. In the three and a half months since he took over as Chief Executive of the European Tour Keith Pelley is already making his mark as a strong and decisive leader, though his decisions are not without controversy.

Rory McIlroy’s win in the DP World Championship Final last weekend, the final event on the Race To Dubai, saw him win the season ending finale. This win surely vindicated Keith Pelley’s first decison made in office which was to exempt McIlroy from playing the required 13 events because he had two months out due to injury and illness. McIlroy managed to compete in 12 events but chose to miss the preceeding week’s event in Shanghai. McIlroy’s nearest rival, Danny Willett, said”I appreciate him playing makes a massive difference to the Tour, but if rules are made to be broken there’s no point in making them”. Pelley’s resolution of this has been to reduce the minimum playing requirement from 13 events to 5, not including the majors and the WGC events, which should help out players also competing on the PGA Tour outside the top 50 such as Ian Poulter, Luke Donald and Graeme McDowell. Paul Casey has chosen not to rejoin the European Tour. So that will help next year. But this season the player who has been most affected by the decision to help McIlroy is Seve Benson, the 111th ranked player who has now lost his card.

Pelley is clearly on a mission to strengthen and expand the European Tour and is not afraid to stand up to the PGA Tour where their interests collide. An example of this is the French Open. Next year it will be played, due to scheduling changes, opposite the WGC Bridgestone Invitational in the States, which is not now a qualifying event for the Race To Dubai. The French Open now has an increased prize fund and more Ryder Cup ranking points available. Also, with the PGA Tour making inroads into Asia he is countering this with a joint vision Asian Tour.

Pelley’s statement last week that he felt that the DP World Championship in Dubai was more the Tour’s Flagship Event than the BMW PGA at Wentworth because the prize fund of $8 million plud bonus is much larger than the Wentworth event’s 5.1 million Euro prize fund. He says it needs to ne $8-10 million. I saw this as a challenge to sponsors BMW, who have withdrawn their support of the event in Shanghai which will next year be replaced by the Nedbank Challenge in Sun City as one of the final events on the Race To Dubai. I also read it as a challenge to Wentworth Club’s new owners to upgrade the quality of the West Course. With the new owners of Wentworth Club drastically raising their fees in order to fund these changes, and as a consequence becoming an elitist club, I wonder whether the Tour Headquarters will move from Wentworth in due course.

The overall mission is to make the European Tour a viable alternative to the PGA Tour but to do this prize funds must increase drastically. With Martin Kaymer, Lee Westwood and Victor Dubisson committing to playing in Europe as their base, this is a good start, and it is going to be very interesting to see over the next couple of years how many more top players will choose Europe, but this will only happen if the money is greatly increased.

He has also been in talks with Martin Slumbers, Chief Executive of the Royal and Ancient, to wage a personal war against slow play. This reared its head again with Sergio Garcia taking 15 minutes to discuss a rules decision with a tour official. He wants the European Tour to be the leaders in dealing with slow play.

In a interview with John Hopkins he makes clear that he sees professional golf as a branch of entertainment. “This is theatre”. Golf as a spectator sport needs to be exposed to more people.

Pelley’s Player’s First policy has begun to be implemented by the setting up of a Player Relations Committee. Some European Tour pros have said that his ideas to broaden golf’s appeal are on the right track because something had to be done, the spirt had been stagnant for too long.

He is tackling slow play and is looking at other creative formats outside of 72 hole events. In addition he is working on the Vatican’s Faith and Sport Committee, which is looking at all kinds of issues such as how sport can help the poor, overcoming racial and gender barriers and the roles of coaches. All stumulating intellectual work that will keep his fresh ideas coming. We live in such interesting, and exciting times for our sport when change is happening rapidly. Looks like the European Tour has got the right man at the helm to keep pace with it all and bring about change by action rather than words.