Rose and Garcia duel the highlight of a thrilling year
AFTER another absorbing golf year, let’s look back on the biggest, the best and the worst.
BEST TOURNAMENT
Commendations to The Open, with Jordan Spieth’s eyeopening shenanigans plus the amazing crowd, and a vibrant yet sporting Solheim Cup. But it has to be the Masters for that unforgettable final-round duel between Sergio Garcia and Justin Rose. Everything we love about sport was on show: two men at the top of their game, culminating in a win for a deserving Spaniard who, at 37, finally got there.
BEST SHOT
Isn’t it amazing that one stands out from the millions played? Step forward Justin Thomas, and the three-wood he struck from 310 yards with a carry at the par-five 18th at Erin Hills to set up the eagle three that broke the scoring record at the US Open. Quite simply, only a handful of players have the skill set to even contemplate such a blow, much less pull it off.
BEST PLAYER
Justin Thomas in America. As for Europe, that would be telling. I’m on a small panel that will have the honour of deciding such a European Tour accolade in London on Friday and I hope I’m not giving anything away in predicting a lively conversation debating the respective achievements of Sergio Garcia and Tommy Fleetwood…
BEST ROUND
Given we’d been waiting more than 40 years for someone to better a score of 63 at a major, look no further than Branden Grace’s wondrous 62 in the third round of The Open. It’s perhaps as well the South African didn’t know history was on the line when he stood on the 18th tee.
BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT
It’s not meant as a slight on all the exciting young golfers who have taken over the world game but when you start the season eagerly anticipating what Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods are going to do and both pull up lame, it’s hard for the shoulders not to sag. The greatest players of their respective generations, it will be next year’s biggest disappointment as well if Rory doesn’t bounce back in 2018. As for Tiger, we’re in ‘hope for the best and expect the worst’ territory.
BIGGEST SHOCK
Lee Westwood and his manager Chubby Chandler going their separate ways after a 24-year partnership. Two titans of the European game in their different ways, you’d have thought this a bond to last a lifetime, and how sad that it didn’t.
BIGGEST COMEBACK
You’d have to have the flintiest heart not to have been touched by the story of American Patrick Cantlay and his wonderful year on the PGA Tour, after all he’s been through. Three years of hell with his back, during which he watched his best friend die in his arms following a hit and run — how on earth do you come back from all that? You get the feeling there’s plenty more to come from the 25-year-old as well.
WORST TOURNAMENT
Just when you think they can’t possibly cock it up for a third year running, the United States Golf Association managed to debase yet another US Open. A soulless venue and scoring so low the tournament’s raison
d’etre as the hardest major was lost completely. I recently had to fill in a survey from the USGA
WORST SHOT
asking what I thought of them. They didn’t score well. Has any golfer won The Open before while hitting a shot as bad as the drive Jordan Spieth struck on the 13th at Royal Birkdale in the final round? It was so wild it finished beside a club manufacturers’ truck in an area not usually considered part of the golf course. The only reason it wasn’t out of bounds is that no-one thought it would be necessary to mark off that area. The golf Spieth played thereafter was the mark of a true champion, but he was a lucky one, too.