McILROY LEADS A SUPERSTAR CAST
ER... THAT’S THE WRONG BALL, PEP!
THE royal wedding guests have moved out of the area’s luxury hotels and the top golfers have moved in. The weather forecast is fair, Wentworth has never looked in better condition and the oft-troubled past of the European Tour’s flagship event, the BMW PGA Championship, suddenly seems a long time ago.
Inside the ropes, Rory McIlroy — the most famous UK sportsman according to a new ESPN poll — leads a starry cast that also includes Pep Guardiola’s best golf pal Tommy Fleetwood, renaissance man Ian Poulter and the return from exile of local boy Paul Casey, not only back home but back in the world’s top 10 for the first time in seven years.
McIlroy, after a pro-am more interesting than the norm given he got to partner his boyhood idols Paul Scholes and Teddy Sheringham, will try to draw a line under his poor form since his Masters letdown and return to playing the sort of exciting golf that led to him topping the aforementioned poll.
Asked to sum up a year to date that has featured a final round of brilliance at Bay Hill to win the Arnold Palmer Invitational but too many ropey days for comfort, the Northern Irishman replied: ‘The good has been very good but the bad has been worse than I’d like. I’m looking for more consistency, where I can still have a chance when I’m struggling a bit rather than having a weekend off.
‘I did some good work in Florida last week on my swing and now I need to take it on to the course here and build some momentum heading into the busy summer.’
Poulter and Casey, two more players based in America, could not hide their delight at returning to their roots. The former rattled off some things he liked about being here rather than the US — sausages, bacon and curries among them — before concluding simply: ‘It’s just great to be back in the UK.’
As for the latter, who grew up less than five miles away in Weybridge, this was the event he missed most when he decided to leave the European Tour — he rejoined this season — and concentrate on America.
That decision has paid dividends to such an extent that he is now back inside the world’s top 10 at the age of 40. Five years ago he was ranked 167th.
‘I’m very proud that I have got back into the top 10 with the stuff I have played over the last three seasons,’ he said. ‘Ultimately, that comes down to the fact I just love this game. I love the work, the drive, the getting up in the morning and just doing it. Now the challenge is to stay there over the next three or four years.’
More than 120,000 people are expected to make their way to these leafy acres over the next four days.
With a mammoth first prize of nearly £900,000 and oodles of Ryder Cup qualifying points at stake, they should be treated to some spectacle.