The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Health and wealth on show
AS A temporary escape from the recessionary blues, you could hardly pick better than the BMW PGA Championship, the European tour’s annual beano in the leafy lanes of the Wentworth club this week.
Turning off the A30 through the big white stone entrance into the Surrey estate is to enter a different world. Whatever the economic situation, the BMW PGA always gives the impression that the European Tour is booming.
The range and the putting green heave with people, and you wonder how the players get enough room. The clubhouse, larger than a top hotel and twice as luxurious, is packed out with permatans. The tented village is the best outside The Open, the hospitality far more lavish.
The tour’s annual dinner launches the week, the pro-am is the most star-studded of all, and 30,000-plus a day will show up. But such is Wentworth that you can take a turn up a lane in the estate and suddenly feel you’re the only one around for miles.
In about it all is a championship that really does reflect the health and wealth of the tour, and by the standards of the last two years it has never thrived more than it does now. Twelve months ago the European tour boasted the top four players in the world, and this year they claim the top three.
Last year Luke Donald and Lee Westwood wrestled for World No 1 status down the stretch, with Luke winning and taking the crown that Westwood had regained from Martin Kaymer. All those three are back this year, as is Rory Mcilroy having since attained world No 1 status.
Donald’s win, for my money, was the first sign that he had dealt with what many considered to be his ultimate problem – a percieved lack of length. The new West Course redrawn by Ernie Els and the club’s owner Richard Caring was thought to have become a bombers’ paradise, but Donald has been top three on both occasions since they changed it.
And the changes have got a mixed response. I loved that it was possible to finish 3-3-3 on the West and make up five strokes in quick order, but it’s next to impossible now. The 18th still looks like an aberration, a Us-style water feature dumped into the heathland.
On the plus front, the conversion of the greens from poa anna is now complete, and condition-wise there is no better golf course in Europe, thanks to the retiring Scottish greenkeeper Chris Kennedy.
Wentworth’s had odd winners, including two Scots in recent times in Andy Oldcorn and Scott Drummond, with 13 of our guys hopeful this time. Each way on Paul Lawrie would certainly be a sound move, Stephen Gallacher should always challenge there, and Richie Ramsay is another who should suit.
Mcilroy’s previous best is fifth, and converting from US conditions may be an issue for him. Donald has the same problem, but he’s more experienecd at it, and I can’t imagine Luke not being in at the death on Sunday.