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 18th, 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