Archives for September 2009

With one anecdote Britain's brightest golfing prospect justified the retention of the biennial clash between GB and Ireland and Continental Europe on the European Tour calendar.
After becoming his team's talismanic leader in the Vivendi Trophy with Severiano Ballesteros (formerly Seve Trophy), Rory McIlroy devoured the infamous words of indifference he'd expressed about team golf last May.

The 20-year-old did so while praising his captain Paul McGinley - the real star of the four sun-blessed days at Saint-Nom-La-Breteche. "Every team meeting was at half-seven this week and I actually looked forward to being in those team meetings," McIlroy said.

"I was usually turning up at quarter-past seven because there was such a buzz about them. You had all the lads in there with their ideas and Paul has a load of great ideas, especially with the team format, the foursomes and the four-balls."

Read the rest of this entry

Even when he isn't playing or captaining, even when his role is supposed to be nothing more than a watching brief, Colin Montgomerie sets the agenda. When it comes to stealing headlines the former European number one has form that would make Ronnie Biggs blush.

So on a day that produced an abundance of talking points, ranging from the latest heartfelt message from Seve Ballesteros, to Rory McIlroy retracting his infamous Ryder Cup "exhibition" quotes to the continent's reigning number one, Robert Karlsson, describing how close he came to needing injections in his eye, it was still our Monty who made the news.

Montgomerie couldn't help himself as he spoke on the eve of the Continental Europe versus GB and Ireland clash for the Vivendi Trophy at Saint-Nom-La-Breteche near Paris.

Read the rest of this entry

Throughout his long playing career Colin Montgomerie has always favoured the European Tour over the PGA Tour - the Scot is far more Wentworth than Ponte Vedra Beach.

But that hasn't stopped Europe's Ryder Cup captain from taking note of what has been happening Stateside over the last three weeks and observing the success of the play-off series that comes to its climax at next week's Tour Championship.

This is very much part of Montgomerie's captaincy brief because he knows the demands of a successful FedEx Cup run could have serious implications for next year's Ryder Cup at Celtic Manor.

Players who have successfully been beating the cut-off marks as the PGA Tour has progressively whittled down fields and are now among the elite top 30 who will compete at East Lake, are clearly in form but despite this week off they're also likely to be exhausted.

Read the rest of this entry

Back at the USPGA Padraig Harrington was explaining how he could put behind him the disappointment of missing out on the chance of winning a big tournament.

"You know the great thing about golf?" the three-time major champion said. "There's always next week. As soon as I started hitting balls on the range here it was all about this week, what happened before is gone."

This was in the wake of the eight at the 16th that cost him the chance of beating Tiger Woods in the WGC event at Firestone, ironically the start of a run of largely self-inflicted near misses that is still continuing.

But it is probably this mentality that keeps sane the majority of professional golfers. It helps them to rationalise disappointments and ruinous moments they'd love to have over again..

Read the rest of this entry