The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Weekend we’d waited for
GOLF NEEDED this weekend badly. I mean REA LLY badly, as 2014 has been an incredibly mundane year so far. Tiger Woods is hurt and probably gone for the year. None of the other major names has seemingly been able to hit their hats in the first four months.
Bubba won the Masters but without any drama down the stretch. We’ve had a succession of fresh-faced, earnest but utterly anonymous winners — most of whom seem to be named Matt — on the US Tour.
Miguel A ngel Jimenez has done his best to add a bit of sparkle to proceedings but no matter what a freak of physiology he may be, he’s still 50 years old.
A nd he’s probably playing the Champions Tour once he’s done with the Ryder Cup at Gleneagles, so while we congratulate Colin Montgomerie on his US Senior PGA Championship title on Sunday, his first “major” — although not a real one, let’s face it — we’d advise him to make hay now.
Golf was in need of some stardust sprinkle. A nd thankfully two of the biggest underachievers of the year so far, Rory McIlroy andA dam Scott, provided it.
A dam had already gone to World No 1 without hitting a ball in anger courtesy of the indecipherable working of the rankings boffins, provoking plenty of grim murmurings from people saying Tiger or Greg or Sir Nick never did that — they did, actually.
There’s more sympathy that A dam hadn’t actually played very well in 2014, but that merely goes to highlight other failings of the ranking system.
The A ustralian’s been the real No 1 since December, when he was playing very well.
Even if he didn’t have anything to prove to anyone, he did so anyway by winning the Crowne Invitational at Colonial, his belated first victory of the year — and his first as a married man, proving that the love of a good woman can work wonders.
Or maybe not. Over on the leafy border of Surrey and Berkshire, Rory’s star quality gave golf and specifically the EuropeanTour an almighty shot in the arm.
The column inches — more like miles, really — given to his relationship break-up on Wednesday, whatever the questionable timing, actually worked spectacularly in the beleaguered Tour’s favour.
It concentrated attention on him and the championship, and off the Tour’s recent troubles. Embattled chief executive George O’Grady gratefully stayed in the shadows.