There were lots of hugs and high fives as Team USA fought back from a 10-8 deficit to win the Presidents Cup, once again, by a score of 16-14. That huge smile we saw after Wood’s victory at Augusta was back and the there was obvious emotion in the US Captain’s voice when talking after his team’s victory.
Sergio García will play in next year’s Saudi International despite trying to trash a number of their greens when playing the event in February of this year. The Spaniard was disqualified after his extraordinary behaviour but it seems that there was a further sanction from tour who have insisted he plays at the event in 2020 without an appearance fee. call that a sanction? We are not impressed.
In a week where there has been much discussion about the Billy Mayfair affair Russell Henly has reminded us all that the vast majority of tour players are honourable golfers. On dishing out signed golf balls to fans after finishing his second round at the Mayakoba Golf Classic Henly realised he had violated the One Ball rule and called an eight shot penalty on himself.
Jason Day gets in private jet, hot foots it from CJ Cup in China where he was 31st and then beats Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy and home favourite Hideki Matsuyama to the spoils taking home $210,000 of the $350,000 pot. Happy Days then (do you see what we did there?)! Well perhaps for Jason but not really for golf as the inaugural 'The Challenge: Japan Skins' lived up to our pretty low expectations.
The 6:57 to East Grinstead trundles out of Clapham Junction. I’m on board with my Café Nero’s black americano in hand (other coffee brands were available) and a copy of City AM on the table in front of me. Today’s mission, to seek out a gem of a course that I have known about for years but never played. The course in question is Tandridge Golf Club and I have heard good reports about the course and, in particular, the famous lunch – more of that later!
Not happy with having the most popular golf ball those clever chaps at Titleist continue to push the boundaries of ball technology. The Titleist Golf Ball Research & Development team were thrown into a room and told they could not come out until they came up with a new golf ball. The result, the Experimental EXP•01 Golf Ball.
Victor Perez became the first French winner of the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship after one of the most exciting finishes in the history of the event, winning by one shot from England’s Matthew Southgate at St Andrews. Whilst, at the same time, Rory McIlroy, finishing tied for 26th place complains to the BBC that the European Tour is too easy.
At the Wednesday press conference with Rory McIlroy at the BMW PGA Championship the subject inevitably turned to slow play. It transpires that the world number two had been watching the Solheim Cup, or as GolfPunk had renamed it the Slowheim Cup.
Matt Fitzpatrick’s little brother, Alex, led the way for team Great Britain and Ireland at Royal Liverpool yesterday. Following a foursomes win in the morning, with partner Conor Purcell, Fitzpatrick took out world number one amateur Cole Hammer (great name!) in the top afternoon singles game to help The GB&I team to a 7-5 lead after day one.
Is it just us or can you not get excited about the Walker Cup? The amateur version of the Ryder Cup takes place this weekend over the famous Royal Liverpool Golf Club links at Hoylake. The two teams of 10 players will compete over the two days of foursomes and singles matches first to 13½ points winning.
The finale of the PGA Tour season is upon us and already we have a leaderboard in the race for that crazy payout of $15 million to the winner. Thirty men, honourable and true, will tee it up at the East Lake Golf Club just outside Atlanta with dollar signs in their eyes. Justin Thomas already leads by two, crazy we know but then again, the whole thing is.
We often read about how a club has been designed for the tour players and is now being released to us mere mortals and, to be honest, it sells a great idea that by adding said stick to our bag will result in us playing like Brooks, Tiger or Rory. Sadly, in real life this is rarely the case so the idea that Cleveland have launched their CBX2 wedges with the majority of golfers in mind is a refreshing change of pace.
