In addition to these rules, German aircraft from Norway would fly on missions to northern England; because of the icy weather conditions, the barrels of their guns had a small dab of wax to protect them. As they crossed the coast, they would clear their guns by firing a few rounds at the golf courses. Golfers were urged to take cover.

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Thought for the Day
Never buy a car you can’t push

Memo to Tim Finchem, commissioner of the US PGA Tour
If you want your golf season to end with drama and excitement – for your final event to be one that rouses passions, pits the best players of the year against each other and to culminate in a thrilling climax, have a word with FedEx. You might also consider flying to Dubai to see how Europe does it.

Let’s face it, your FedEx Cup playoffs, in which you stage four tournaments over five weeks, and which has a format of re-adjusting points after each event that no-one understands, has been the biggest damp squib since Guido Fawkes and his mates failed to blow up the Houses of Parliament. In contrast the race to Dubai, culminating in the Dubai World Championship, has been running for two years now and has the happy knack of leaving all sorts of possibilities open until the last putt has been sunk.

Last year the focus was on the season long Race to Dubai, in which Lee Westwood and young tyke Rory McIlroy slugged it out until Westwood shot a staggering last round of near-perfection 64 and put the young pup in his place. This year the order of merit table was quickly settled in favour of front-runner Martin Kaymer, as his closest challenger Graeme McDowell ran out of gas as early as the first round. So our attention turned instead to the tournament itself, and it was a thriller, with any one of half a dozen players (Lee Westwood and Rory McIlroy – again – Robert Karlsson, Alvaro Quiros, Ian Poulter and Francesco Molinari) all in with a shout. And incidentally, five of those players finished in the top-6 of the season-ending order of merit – replace Quiros with McDowell and the symmetry would have been perfect. That it went to a playoff between Karlsson and Poulter, and was eventually decided in the Swede’s favour by a birdie on the 18^th, seemed somehow fitting for a tournament that provides an emphatic and dramatic end point to the European season.

Mr Finchem, whether out of loyalty, stubbornness or stupidity, you have stuck with a useless format for four years now and tinkered with it every season in a misguided attempt to fix something that has been broken from day one. The time for tinkering is over – get rid of it.

Some people are never satisfied
Martin Kaymer, on attempting to lift the massive Race to Dubai trophy, said: ‘I’m very proud and very satisfied with my year. I’d like to prove that I’m Europe’s number one and win the Race to Dubai again. It would also be nice to win a major again, preferably the British Open, our only major that we have in Europe.  And I never made a hole-in-one in my life…’

Now this is from a man who, at the indecent age of 25, has just trousered nearly four-and a half million euro for his year’s work in Europe, has won eight times, with four of those victories coming this year, has lifted his first major and just claimed the crown of top dog in Europe.

But he smarts because he’s never made an ace – if that’s not the definition of greed, I don’t know what is.

But there is justice

The only downside for Kaymer, as it is for all sports people in the public eye, is that in order to keep his sponsors happy he has to pose for daft pictures like this. The accompanying press release says: ‘US PGA Champion and BMW Golfsport Ambassador Martin Kaymer took time out from chasing the European Number One spot to get to grips with a powerful BMW X6 xDrive50i, surfing like a pro over the dunes in the 407hp vehicle.’

And of course, he just hopped out halfway through to hit a wedge shot because, well, err…

And isn’t that the most unconvincing PhotoShopped golf ball you’ve ever seen?

Take it like a man
Ian Poulter has also had a fabulous season, culminating in a stunning finish over the last three events, where he finished sixth, first and second, having had a very real chance to win all three. And while he was obviously disappointed to incur a one-stroke penalty on the second playoff hole of the Dubai World Championship, his immediate response was less than statesmanlike.

He said: ‘I’m sure there are a lot of positives to take away, but right now I’m not really seeing them. I went to mark the ball and literally the ball slipped from two or three inches above the coin. And it’s pitched right on the front of the marker and it flipped over. One-shot penalty. It’s one of those rules I guess.’

Well, Ian, yes it is. But you didn’t lose because of that penalty, you lost because you hit a crap wedge into the final green, whereas your opponent fired his into four feet and made birdie. Even in the immediate aftermath of bitter disappointment you should have been able to recognise that, and to remember to congratulate your opponent on his good play, rather than fulminate about your bad luck.

Quote of the week
A tap-in is a putt that is short enough to be missed one-handed.
Henry Beard

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Thought for the Day
If at first you don’t succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried

Bring it on
As GoKart likes to regard itself as having its finger on the pulse, ear to the ground and any other insider, informed, access to the skinny cliché you can think of, you will no doubt want our view on who is going to win the Open. But the truth is, what the heck do we (or anyone else) really know? Who, for example, could have predicted Ben Curtis, Todd Hamilton or Paul Lawrie to lift the claret jug over the last decade or so? And how about Trevor Immelman and Zach Johnson to don a fetching green jacket; Lucas Glover, Angel Cabrera and Graeme McDowell to lift the US Open trophy; or YE Yang, Shaun Micheel and Rich Beem to take the year’s fourth Major, the USPGA?

As a general rule of thumb, two of the year’s big ones are captured by players who already have a Major win under their belt, while the other two go to debutant victors, and so far in 2010 that pattern has continued, with Phil Mickelson grabbing the Masters on behalf of the been-there-done-that-got-the-T-shirt brigade, and Northern Ireland’s finest being the representative for the gosh-what-just happened contestants, who are supposed to be there just to make up the numbers.

So when in doubt, follow the bookies and right now they seem to have Tiger Woods firmly ensconced as favourite (7-2), closely followed by Phil Mickelson (12-1), Lee Westwood (14-1), Padraig Harrington and Ernie Els (16-1), and Rory McIlroy (18-1).

I don’t know whether it is inevitable home-pride cock-eyed optimism but it seems to me that we have a very real chance of seeing a home grown winner this time. Lee Westwood’s form has not been great recently but between him, Justin Rose, Ian Poulter, Paul Casey, Luke Donald, Ross Fisher, Padraig Harrington and Rory McIlroy, the chances of a home victory are stronger than ever (and of course, we regard anyone from Ireland, whether north or south, as one of ours). For an each way bet you could do worse than Stephen Gallacher, a streak player who just finished fourth at Loch Lomond after a 69, 68 weekend. He has now fully recovered from injury problems and although he has only one European Tour victory under his belt, it came at St Andrews, in the Dunhill Links Championship.

The right venue?
For several years I toyed with the idea of writing to Peter Dawson, chief executive of the R&A, with the suggestion that he consider bringing golf’s oldest Major to a links course I had just opened. The course had, I would explain, the easiest opening and closing holes in championship golf, only two par threes, at least four driveable par fours, several double greens which tend to make play ridiculously slow, and was a layout where you could hit it left all day and never find trouble – because that, in a nutshell, is the Old Course and I believed that it was no longer a good enough test for the best in the world.

Like so many, however, who have had the good fortune to play the Old Lady a few times I have been obliged to reconsider because it remains a place of endless subtlety, charm and challenge. And there is nowhere else in the world that can say: ‘Every great golfer who has ever played the game has tested themselves on this course.’ Even Ben Hogan, who only played one Open Championship, and that at Carnoustie, stopped off at St Andrews on his way home (although he walked off the 17th green straight onto a train and didn’t play the last).
That history is unsurpassed and I’m pretty sure that for me the highlight of the week will be on Wednesday, when 25 former winners will take part in the four-hole Champions Challenge that celebrates the 150th anniversary of the first Open, at Prestwick in 1860. Everyone who attends will have their own favourite group but I might wait for the final threeball of Tom Weiskopf, Ernie Els and Tom Watson – two of the smoothest swingers ever seen, and the modern era master of links golf.

The elephant in the room, of course, will be Seve Ballesteros, who has had to pull out on the advice of his oncologist but we all know he’ll be there in spirit and in our hearts.

Water torture
It is understandable that people like us (and by this I mean club golfers with dodgy handicaps) do not particularly like water hazards on a golf course. They cost us money, in the form of lost balls, but more damagingly they cost us strokes, which unlike golf balls, are impossible to replace. It is less easy, however, to comprehend why a bit of aqua gets into the mind and consequently buggers up the swing, of gnarled, tough-as-old boots Tour pros.

Only a week ago we witnessed Miguel Angel Jimenez – and they don’t come much more experienced or laidback than him – standing in the middle of the 72nd fairway of the Alstom Open de France with a two-stroke lead over the field and a 7-iron in his hands with which he only needed to hit a regulation piece-of-cake, no-worries shot to the green. Anywhere on the putting surface would have done but he chunked it into the water. In the subsequent playoff his compatriot Alejandro Canizares, who is young enough, we would think, to not yet have the accumulation of mental scars that accrue with a lengthy career, decided to out-perform his senior colleague by dumping his ball into the water twice.

My home course has a beautiful par 3 over water to a virtual island green. The good news is that it only plays between a wedge and 8-iron, depending on the mood of the greenkeeper when he sets out the tee markers in the morning, and yet I have personally dumped more Titleists into the pond than I can count. In any other situation an 8-iron to the green would have me purring in anticipation but on this hole I find limitless ways to miss the target. If we see our ball heading for the rough or trees we may not like the fact but it doesn’t produce the same jolt of fear as that ominous splash and yet it should. Fail to find your ball in the jungle and it’s the long trudge back to the tee; find the water hazard and more often than not you can drop out, especially if it’s a lateral, and lose only one stroke, as opposed to hitting three from the tee. In the early days of the European Tour, one wily veteran, if his ball was off line, would often say, where appropriate: ‘Damn, it’s going into the water,’ trying to convince his playing partners that it was wet, rather than lost, so that he could drop out to the side if necessary (and it often worked).
Perhaps the last word should go to Tommy Bolt, he of the famed titanic temper. He once said: ‘Only bullfighting and the water hole are left as vestigial evidence of what a bloody savage man used to be. Only in golf is this sort of contrived swindle allowed.’

Quote of the Week
May thy ball lie in green pastures – and not in still waters.
Anon

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The Dalai Lama is 75 today.  And we have proof he plays golf.  Well Bill Murray caddied for him.

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Thought for the Day
What would Geronimo have said if he jumped out of an airplane?

Dane brings home the bacon (sorry)
The motives we have for developing a liking for a particular golfer are numerous and not always related to the obvious fact of them being particularly superior at what they do. They’re all good, but some insinuate themselves into our affections for idiosyncratic reasons which can be as simple as seeing them treat a young fan in a particularly generous way, or wearing an outlandish outfit. For example, I have always followed the career of Australian Craig Parry with particular attention. During the 1990s when I worked on a golf magazine he was one of our instruction editors and I used to go to photoshoots in order to capture his words. Whenever I complimented him on an especially good shot he would reply with a smile, in typically Aussie fashion: ‘Nah mate – piece of p*ss to a trained athlete.’

For an equally individual reason, Thomas Bjorn is among the select group of golfers on my personal list of favourites. At the St Andrews Open of 2000 he, a few other players and small group of journalists were on the balcony of the Links clubhouse after some official function. We were just shooting the breeze and Thomas, in that wonderfully laconic and droll style of his, recounted a number of salacious, no doubt libellous (and therefore not possible to repeat here) and vastly entertaining stories about himself and his fellow pros. Ever since, I have considered him to be the Daddy of Cool and his unhurried, almost lazy perambulations down the fairways have often had me in attendance as a result.

So congratulations on winning the Estoril Open de Portugal, Tommy – now for The Open.

Great Scot
Speaking of the Open, Colin Montgomerie rightly grabbed all the headlines a week ago by shooting 69, 62 at Sunningdale to get into the Championship via International final qualifying. And he did it the hard way, with an okay but not great morning round, leaving him with the knowledge that he had to do something special after lunch to make the grade. That he was able to equal the Sunningdale New course record with a blistering 62, which he admits came as a surprise to himself, speaks volumes for the fact that, even if some of the talent atrophies with advancing years, the competitive fires do not diminish. It will be good to see the old boy at St Andrews.

My eye, however, is always drawn to those who fail to make the grade – and let us not under-estimate quite how difficult this examination is, with only 10 going through from a field of 96 battle-hardened Tour pros. Imagine, for example, that you are Patrik Sjoland (68, 66), James Kingston (65, 69), Gregory Bourdy (67, 67), Jamie Donaldson (68, 66) or Peter Lawrie (67, 67). All five of them tied on 134 with Marcel Siem but lost out in a playoff when the German birdied the first extra hole.

Others who didn’t make it at Sunningdale and who are fast running out of chances to appear in the 150^th Anniversary Open are: Darren Clarke, David Howell, Paul McGinley, Niclas Fasth, Alastair Forsyth, Nick Dougherty and Oliver Fisher.
Few areas of life are as hard-hearted and merciless as professional sport, and golf is the flintiest bitch of all.

Low on the totem poll
Depressingly, apart from Monty, the only Scots so far guaranteed a spot in the Open are Paul Lawrie and Sandy Lyle, who are exempt as former champions under the age of 60. The only one to make the field on playing ability alongside Monty is Martin Laird, who is the highest placed Scotsman in the world rankings, at a lofty 113^th as I write. If you’re not too familiar with the name it’s because the Glasgow-born Laird attended Colorado State University and plays full time on the US PGA Tour.
The Caledonians nearest to him in the world rankings are Stephen Gallacher (135^th), Richie Ramsay (158^th) and David Drysdale (200^th). Monty sits at 365^th. And to think that the Scots invented golf.

Nothing should be pre-ordained
Jack Nicklaus, among others has prognosticated on Cory Pavin’s statement that Tiger Woods was ‘not guaranteed’ a place on the US Ryder Cup team if he didn’t play his way into the side on merit. When Jack speaks I listen but I’m afraid this time he has it all wrong by suggesting that the US captain ‘would need a brain scan’ if he didn’t include Tiger.

We all know that Tiger’s performances in the Ryder Cup have never matched those he displays in 72-hole strokeplay events, and with his recent travails and five month layoff clearly affecting his form, Pavin would be stupid to say the world number one is guaranteed a place. Picking someone on reputation rather than form is a sure-fired way of losing. Come to think of it, perhaps we should all write to Corey and say: ‘Great idea, and while you’re at it, why not pick Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer, because few in golf have bigger reputations.’

Pop Quiz
What do Jeramy (correct spelling) May, Alan Flood and Jimmy Craig have in common?

Answer: All three were spectators on the final day of the Memorial Tournament at Muirfield Village (won so brilliantly by Justin Rose), and all three were hit by the golf ball of Tiger Woods, in three separate incidents.

When such things occur Tiger’s in the habit of giving the victim a signed glove as an apology. So if you see him in the weeks ahead playing gloveless, you’ll know where they all went.

Quote of the Week
Man blames fate for other accidents, but feels personally responsible when he makes a hole in one.
Anon

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With thanks to Lynne Davies…

An 80-year-old Italian goes to the doctor for a check-up. The doctor is amazed at what good shape the guy is in and asks,’ how do you stay in such great physical condition?’

I’m Italian and I am a golfer,’ says the old guy, ‘and that’s why I’m in such good shape. I’m up well before daylight and out golfing up and down the fairways. I have a glass of vino, and all is well.’

‘Well’ says the doctor, ‘I’m sure that helps, but there’s got to be more to it. How old was your Father when he died?’

‘Who said my Father’s dead?’

The doctor is amazed. ‘You mean you’re 80 years old and your Father’s still alive. How old is he?’

‘He’s 100 years old,’ says the Old Italian golfer. ‘In fact he golfed with me this morning, and then we went to the topless beach for a walk and had a little vino and that’s why he’s still alive. He’s Italian and he’s a golfer, too.’

‘Well,’ the doctor says, ‘that’s great, but I’m sure there’s more to it than that. How about your Father’s Father? How old was he when he died?’

‘Who said my Nono’s dead?’

Stunned, the doctor asks, ‘you mean you’re 80 years old and your grandfather’ s still living! Incredible, how old is he?’

‘He’s 118 years old,’ says the Old Italian golfer.

The doctor is getting frustrated at this point, ‘So, I guess he went golfing with you this morning too?’

‘No, Nono couldn’t go this morning because he’s getting married today.’

At this point the doctor is close to losing it. ‘Getting married!! Why would a 118 year- old guy want to get married?’

‘Who said he wanted to?’

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“Don’t play too much golf. Two rounds a day are plenty.”

“A great deal of unnecessarily bad golf is played in this world.”

“If your opponent is playing several shots in vain attempts to extricate himself from a bunker, do not stand near him and audibly count his strokes. It would be justifiable homicide if he wound up his pitiable exhibition by applying his niblick to your head.”

“Never concede the putt that beats you.”

“Moderation is essential in all things, madam, but never in my life have I failed to beat a teetotaler.”

“I hold firm the opinion that from this date the essential attitude towards accuracy was completely lost sight of. This was the start of the craze for length and still more length.” (on the advent of the rubber ball)

“Golfers find it a very trying matter to turn at the waist, more particularly if they have a lot of waist to turn”

“Do not be tempted to invest in a sample of each golfing invention as soon as it makes its appearance. If you do, you will only complicate and spoil your game – and encumber your locker with useless rubbish.

“More matches are lost through carelessness at the beginning than any other cause.”

“Never saw one who was worth a damn” (describing left-handed golfers)

“I’m the best and I’ll thank you to remember that.”

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“The Englishman is at his best on the links and at his worst in the Cabinet”.  (George Bernard Shaw)

” Men trifle with their business and their politics but never trifle with their games. It brings truth home to them. They cannot pretend they have won when they have lost nor that they had a magnificent drive when they foozled it”.  (Also GBS)

“Gordon; you foozled it”.  (GoKart)

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“Golf seems to me an arduous way to go for a walk. I prefer to take the dogs out”.   Princess Anne

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“It doesn’t matter if you look like a beast before or after the hit, as long as you look like a beauty at the moment of impact”. Seve Ballesteros

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