The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Glaring gap in th he golf market, says s Eve Muirhead
Ilove team golf and I love the Solheim Cup. The last putt drama at Gleneagles recently was up there with any sporting story you can think of.
So three of the events in the next four years isn’t the worst news of the week, that’s for sure.
After 2021, they’re going to play it back-to-back in 2023 and 2024 to take it on to odd years again so the Solheim doesn’t clash with Ryder Cups in the long-term.
I can’t help think that golf has missed a trick here, though.
There’s a glaring gap in the market for a mixed-format team event, which I think would be really popular.
For me, it doesn’t quite work in tennis because the men basically target the women’ s serve and it becomes a bit unbalanced.
But there wouldn’t be a problem like that in golf.
Mixed foursomes is already a tradition of the club game and it would be really exciting to see how it played out with the top pros.
Why not have the mixed event in 2024 when there’s no Ryder Cup?
The strategy of who played tee shots on certain holes would be fascinating and there would be so much other intrigue and interest.
Captaincy would become much more difficult, for starters!
It would, of course, potentially be a big financial boost for women’s golf, which is really struggling in Europe.
Why not have the mixed event in 2024, when there’s no Ryder Cup? Or if that didn’t fit, you could have it in 2023 with the men who take part being the ones who just missed out on the Ryder Cup.
The Continental Cup in curling, which is one of the highlights of my season, works brilliantly as a mixed format and golf should make establishing one a priority.
I watched a lot of the Masters in the first three days but the Sunday was a bit of an anti-climax.
It’s nobody’s fault but for a major to be memorable it needs an exciting last day and this one turned out to be a procession.
You’ve got to admire the way Dustin Johnson didn’t give anybody else a chance to put pressure on him during that famous back nine. It was almost faultless golf.
But, in hindsight, the only man who could have done it was Jon Rahm. It looked like the two of them were set for the sort of head-to-head that would live long in the memory but that evaporated when he wilted on the Saturday. It was a real shame. I’m still glad that the organisers put on the tournament but a hard and fast Augusta in April is what we all want to see.
● It was nice to win our mini-tournament among the programme teams at the National Curling Academy last weekend.
Im ’ never going to pretend it’s the same as real competition but that doesn’t seem to be on the horizon yet.
Team Aitken have definitely emerged as our nearest challengers and hopefully we can make sure we keep each other sharp for when we do get to play teams from other countries.
Nothing has changed with the men. Team Mouat look really strong and I’m sure they’ll be contenders for the big prizes when we get back on tour.