The Press and Journal (Inverness, Highlands, and Islands)
Stanning picks up accolade
Lossiemouth rower Heather Stanning won female athlete of the year at last night’s Team Scotland awards in Edinburgh.
Stanning, who won Olympic gold in the women’s pairs in Rio last month, narrowly pipped fellow rower Katherine Grainger to the award.
It still proved to be a successful night for Aberdeen’s Grainger, who was awarded the lifetime achievement award, while Inverness judoka Stephanie Inglis won Team Scot of the year, following her recovery from life-threatening head injuries suffered in a motorbike accident while teaching youngsters in Vietnam in May.
Wimbledon tennis champion and Olympic gold medallist Andy Murray took the leading prize of Scottish sportsperson of the year, while also winning male athlete of the year and being named in team of the year for his part in Britain’s Davis Cup victory. Mark Crane started his caddying career on the same team as RoryMcIlroy and Danny Willett against Dustin Johnson and Rickie Fowler.
The Ayrshireman caddied for fellow Scot Lloyd Saltman – the first player to employ him – in the 2007 Walker Cup at Royal County Down when McIlroy and Willett were on the GB&I team.
He’s since become one of Europe’s most reliable bagmen, working with Richie Ramsay before pairing with PGA champion Chris Wood.
“The caddying I did for Lloyd when he was coming through as an amateur was crucial for me,” he said.
“That was my apprenticeship and it’s what has gotme where I amtoday so I will always be grateful to Lloyd for giving me that chance.
“It’s pretty cool that nine years on I’m now going to be involved in the same Ryder Cup team as two of the GB&I players from the Walker Cup match in Rory and Danny.”
He doesn’t think the dream of going to a Ryder Cup could be with a better partner than Wood.
“It’s pretty special Chris and I are sharing this journey for the first time together,” he said
Crane has also consulted Ramsay, who won his US Amateur title at Hazeltine in 2006.
“It’s a special place for Richie, of course, and I’ve asked him about it, although the course isn’t how it is when he won the US Amateur as they’ve changed the routing,” added Crane.
“Richie played a big part inmy careerandwasone of the first to textmewhenwe made the team and it’s been nice to see memories from his win there in the clubhouse.”
IN ASSOCIATION WITH
Phil Mickelson is weary of taking the blame for other people’s decisions which mean the US fail at the Ryder Cup, and is not going to take it any more.
Not content with repeating his criticism of captain Tom Watson from Gleneagles two years ago, Mickelson – the prime mover behind the US task force aimed at reversing their Ryder Cup fortunes – displayed his continuing frustration with an infamous incident at the 2004 Ryder Cup at Oakland Hills, when Hal Sutton paired him with Tiger Woods and the pair failed to gel.
“Just a month ago there was an analyst on the Golf Channel accusing me of being a non-team player because of that,” he said.
“We didn’t play well and maybe we were the problem. But we were told two days before that we were playing together, we had no time to prepare.
“Tiger plays a very different ball, a high-spin ball so I grabbed a couple of dozen and tried to learn his golf ball in a four to five-hour session, but that cut into my own preparation.
“I’ve never ball-tested two days prior to a major. You’d never do that. I do my preparation which allows me to bring out my best golf.
“If we had known a month in advance, I think we could have made it work, but it was two days.
“That’s an example of a captain who put us in a position to fail – and we failed monumentally.
“To say, ‘well, you just need to play better’ as Watson said at Gleneagles is so misinformed – you will play how you prepare.”
He expressed his frustration for being blamed for poor decisions at the Ryder Cup he didn’t make.
“Can you imagine how frustrating it is to care so much about something, like I do about the Ryder Cup, and be held accountable for decisions I had no part in?” he asked.
Mickelson has been so much a part of changing the attitude and lack of continuity within the US Ryder Cup team that he surely will be held primarily accountable for another failure this week, but he is happy to take that on.
“In my 20 years this is the first time the players have actually been involved in the decisionmaking process,” he said.
“This is a year that our captain has put us in a position to succeed.
“He’s taken input from all parties. He’s making decisions that have allowed
“It’s so much fun for Tiger and I to be part of something like this”
us to prepare to play our very best.
“It’s very much like the model the Europeans have done with tremendous success, and I give them a lot of credit in their ability to lift each other to great heights and show that when you work as a team you can achieve so much greater success than you ever can as an individual.”
The inclusive process has meant he and Woods – brought in as a vice-captain – have been bouncing ideas off each other for months.
“We’ve been talking on the phone multiple times a day,” he said.
“It’s really exciting for us because we’ve been on so many teams for so many years and to have this much input and involvement, this inclusive process Davis has implemented, it’s so much fun for Tiger and I to be part of something like this.
“It’s a very different feel. We feel we’ve been put in a position to succeed and often, you tend to succeed when that happens.”