IN THE immediate aftermath of Henrik Stenson's brilliantly played and bogey-free final round of 66 in last week's "the Players" (no more championship apparently) one of the more amusing aspects of the presentation ceremony was the comically sour expression on the face of PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem.
He wasn't quite so obviously precious as former Australian Prime Minister, John Howard – who all but threw the winner's medals at the victorious England team after they had beaten the Aussies in the 2003 Rugby World Cup final – but it was clear that
a second successive European player lifting the biggest title in golf outside of the four majors wasn't quite what Timmy had in mind at the start of the week.
Not only did the diminutive leader of the world's richest circuit manage to mangle the champion's name, calling him "Heinrik" more than once, Finchem's minions were apparently hard at work pressuring host broadcaster NBC into not mentioning just how many Fed-Ex Cup points the Swede picked up along with the $1.7million first place cheque. Embarrassingly, that number is nil, due to the fact that Stenson (who will no doubt have welcomed the sizeable boost to his bank balance in the wake of losing a goodly chunk of his fortune amidst the recent Stanford fiasco) thinks he can muddle by without being a PGA Tour member.
THE flexing of corporate muscle behind the scenes is nothing new for Finchem and his gang, of course. Collectively, the PGA Tour brass are past masters at making bad news go away, even when the evidence to the contrary is seemingly incontrovertible. Take last week, when videotape came to light of just what Kenny Perry got up to on the first hole of a sudden death play-off for this year's FBR Open.
As soon as they had seen America's Ryder Cup hero and recent Masters choker in action, tour officials went into "damage control mode," insisting that Perry's tap-tap-tapping on what CBS commentator David Feherty had just called a "big clump of grass behind his ball" was not a breach of the rules.
Even the man beaten in the play-off, Charley Hoffman, wanted nothing to do with pointing out the obvious. "I have no problem with that," he gasped. "We all do it."
If what Hoffman claims is true, not only does golf at the highest level have a serious problem, but some education in the area of what does and does not constitute "improving one's lie" is badly needed.
To make up your own mind on Perry, the incident can now be viewed on YouTube.
ON a much happier note, no trip to the Jacksonville area and the Players is complete without an excursion to the World Golf Hall of Fame. Located a few miles away in St Augustine, the hall is a place every golfer should visit at least once, if only to enjoy the almost endless array of artefacts and historic memorabilia on show. As you'd expect, Scotland is properly and well represented; as many as ten Caledonians – Willie Anderson, Tommy Armour, James Braid, Dorothy Campbell Hurd Howe, Alister Mackenzie, Old Tom Morris, Young Tom Morris, Willie Park senior, Allan Robertson and Donald Ross – have so far been elected.
This past week the hall was in the news when, at a press conference on the eve of the Irish Open, Christy O'Connor Snr joined Lanny Wadkins in the class of 2009 that will be formally inducted this November. For the now 84-year old Irishman, this is an honour that is long overdue. The Hall of Fame should never be just about victories and numbers on cards; great shot-makers should also be recognised and O'Connor, who won 24 times in Europe and played in ten Ryder Cups, surely qualifies under that heading.
Former Masters champion Ben Crenshaw tells a tale of playing with a practice round at Portmarnock with O'Connor before an Irish Open in the 1970s. It was a windy day – even for a Texan apparently – and Crenshaw found himself undecided on what club he should hit with maybe 150 yards of uneven terrain between him and the green. So he asked O'Connor for advice.
Glancing only briefly at the young American, the great man merely snorted, before proceeding to hit 14 balls on to the distant putting surface, one with each club in his bag. That's driver to putter, folks. Pure genius. And, like many of his compatriots, he enjoys a drink too. Allegedly.
John Huggan:
Handing Monty an extra wild-card selection cranks up pressure on the skipper to deliverNo doubt the Scot will be happy at getting some of what he wanted – 12 picks has always been his most favoured option – but he should be aware that the committee's action will only add to the pressure on him to deliver victory 17 months hence. There wasn't, after all, much wrong with a system that seemed to be working perfectly well until last year's defeat at Valhalla. One can only hope that, at least for Monty's sake, this change is not seen, at least in retrospect, as something of a knee-jerk reaction to a loss that had much more to do with the incompetence of the previous captain than it did any failings on the part of the qualifying criteria.
On a related note, it might also benefit the Montgomerie captaincy if Monty the player started making a few cuts.
AND finally. No golfing column could be complete without some acknowledgement of the disappointment the European Tour will feel when its biggest tournament, the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth, kicks-off on Thursday without three of its most high-profile members: Padraig Harrington, Sergio Garcia and Ian Poulter.
For the record, Harrington is citing his discomfort with the Wentworth putting surfaces; Poulter, having missed last year too, is pointing to his awful record over the famed Burma Road; and Garcia has what are euphemistically known as "tax issues," his official Swiss residence apparently precluding him from spending a few days in the UK.
Whatever, it is especially regrettable to see Harrington deciding to absent himself for the second year in a row.
Any European major champion has at least a moral obligation to support his home tour's "flagship" event.
The full article contains 1059 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
