Thought for the Day
Next weekend, help one of your friends to stay put – it’s a whole lot easier than helping them to move house
The best major?
Once again the USPGA Championship ended in a dramatic playoff and the event itself became one of the most exciting of the calendar year – although for absolute drama the Masters has the edge for 2011 because it’s difficult to top the winner birdying the last four holes to snatch the crown, as Charl Schwartzel did back in the mists of time that is April this year. It seems ridiculous, therefore, that in some quarters it was being argued that the event should lose its status as a major. These nonsensical rumblings were being aired in the States before the final round, largely on the basis that the three leading contenders were all unknowns and that consequently public interest, and therefore TV viewing figures (and, of course, advertising revenue) would all be greatly reduced. Thankfully, what we saw provided all the excitement of which pro sport is capable at its peak, more drama than a season of Shakespeare and enough human interest to keep an army of psychologists employed for months to come.
Of the three unknowns heading the field going into the final round, Brendan Steele fulfilled the role of disappearing off the radar screen quicker than Lee Westwood can miss a 10-foot putt; Jason Dufner, the 10-year Tour veteran without a win to his name became the unhurried, unruffled old hand strolling to victory; while Keegan Bradley was the exciting hotshot destined to fall just short. And then someone tore up the script, Bradley played the last three holes in 3, 2, 4 while Dufner went into meltdown and the 25-year-old tyro, making his debut in a major in his rookie season, took the spoils in a playoff. More remarkably, he did it just a week after falling apart over the back nine of the WGC Championship Bridgestone Invitational. Anyone writing such a script would be advised that they needed a change of medication and yet it happened before our very eyes.
It is difficult to recall an event with quite so many plots and sub-plots, from Lee Westwood again trying to convert his superlative ball-striking into birdies, through European charges led by Robert Karlsson and Anders Hansen, down to the leader climbing onto the 15th tee with a five-stroke advantage and not winning. Mixed in with all this we had Scott Verplank, at the age of 47 and having played in around 726 majors, or so it seemed, making his first top-10. The world number one, Luke Donald, again showed that, while length may not be everything, it sure is a hell of a disadvantage if you don’t have it.
The golf course offered everything we should hope for in a major venue – a stiff opening section, opportunities for birdies in the middle and then the most brutal closing stretch imaginable outside of Carnoustie. If I had to play those four finishing holes every week I would either give the game up or be in need of psychiatric help.
It was a great championship and the only sour note is that we now have to wait eight months for the next one.
Pop quiz
The last year that all four majors were won by players winning one of the big four for the first time was 2003 – who were those debutant winners?
Random USPGA thoughts
Commentator Jay Townsend must feel vindicated. Having embroiled himself in a row with Rory McIlroy over the young Irishman’s poor course management, he was able to watch as Rory took the dumbest decision of his pro career, electing to take a full swing at a ball nestled against a tree root.
Day three: Adam Scott on the 9th hole three-putted from less than six feet. You don’t win majors doing that.
Sergio Garcia always seems to be somewhere in the mix in majors, despite his sometimes appalling putting.
Lee Westwood ditto.
Jason Day is a remarkable talent but every time I see him I just want to shout: ‘Shave that ridiculous growth off your chinny chin chin.’
Mark Roe needs to stop trying to make every sentence he speaks sound like the announcement of Armageddon. Most of the time, Mark, the drama speaks for itself and you don’t need to try and ramp it up by saying, for example: ‘Do not. Rule. Out. The big Swede [Karlsson] from winning this championship.’
Also, to describe (several times) Rory McIlroy as a ‘hero’ for playing on with an injured wrist is just daft. Heroes do an awful lot more than play golf, badly, as a result of a self-inflicted injury.
And if Butch Harmon could stop describing every putt faced by every player on the last day as a ‘must make’, it would be nice.
David Toms, failing to win for a second time at Atlanta Athletic Club, denied us unimaginative journalists the opportunity to use the headline ‘Major Toms’.
It is only the third time in history that a golfer making his debut in a Major has won – the other two being Francis Ouimet in the 1913 US Open and Ben Curtis in the Open in 2003.
The courtesy of shaking hands with your opponent immediately after sinking the winning putt, before greeting friends and family, seems to be disappearing.
Quote of the Week
The emblem on the necktie reserved for the members of the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, the Vatican of golf, is of St Andrew himself bearing the saltire cross on which, once he was captured at Patras, he was to be stretched before he was crucified. Only the Scots would have thought of celebrating a national game with the figure of a tortured saint.
Alistair Cooke
Quiz answer: Mike Weir, Jim Furyk, Ben Curtis and Shaun Micheel were the major winners of 2003.