Chandler’s brave face

CrEDIt to besieged golf manager Chubby Chandler for turning up to the golf writers’ dinner despite being in no position to say anything about close friend Lee Westwood leaving his ISM agency to join IMG.

the unforeseen split was the talk of the function and allegedly concerns money owed by Chandler to Westwood. the issue concerns a horseracing interest and was apparently discovered by lawyers looking at ISM’s books in the process around Westwood’s divorce from wife Laurae.

the great pity is that Westwood could not settle the matter with Chandler in-house. lTHERE

is a big desire at the R&A for their flagship golf tournament to be called simply The Open, as it has been expensively branded. Yet off-message chairman Clive Brown referred to it as the ‘Open Championship’ or ‘the Championship’ on five occasions when reading a speech at a press conference yesterday. tHE Grove hotel outside Watford, often used by the England football team, is seen as a ryder Cup venue of the future. Europe captain thomas Bjorn favours playing in big cities, such as paris in 2018, rome in 2022 and New York in 2024. the remote Whistling Straits, Wisconsin, for the 2020 ryder Cup looks like an aberration.