The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
No sure thing any more
Don’t you long for the mid 2000s? Those days when you could be assured that when someone hit the front, they were going to stay in front. I mean, of course, our old friend Eldrick Tont ‘Tiger’ Woods, in the salad days before community service intervened. When Woods hit the front, you could just about down tools.
In fact, from 1997 to 2009, in the major championships, you could fold up the tents.
One of the many amazing facts of Tiger’s great years was that he never lost a 54-hole lead in a major championship; it was his failsafe.
But even more remarkable is that he never once won from behind in a major championship, either. All 14 of them he led (or was co-leader) after 54 holes.
You’d think that once in 14 major wins he’d have blitzed the field on a final-day charge – the ones Jack Nicklaus was famous for, although a great many of those failed.
But no, not one. Eventually his great run ended with a supremely unlikely nemesis, YE Yang at the 2009 PGA Championship at Hazeltine.
In hindsight the ending of that proud record by the former weightlifter from Jeju Island was maybe the true, long-distance harbinger of the end for Woods.
Looking down today’s young bucks, there’s no sure thing on the final day. Rory maybe, if he gets enough distance between himself and the field? It’s been a while now.
Jordan Spieth? Birkdale was amazing but I don’t believe, like many, that it made him indestructible forever.
If it happened twice – three times if you count Augusta this year, when he looked poised to take charge but didn’t – it’ll probably happen again.
Justin Thomas is too new to school to pass judgment on.
Jason Day has struggled with fitness. Which leaves Dustin Johnson. Prior to his meltdown at the HSBC Champions in Shanghai this weekend, we thought slippery steps in his rental house at Augusta were the only thing left to derail DJ.
It seemed as if all the demons that afflicted him in his previous life, when he found new and creative ways to lose big tournaments, had been banished forever.
Before his unfortunate domestic pratfall prior to the Masters, at various tour events and most notably at the WGC in Mexico, Johnson looked imperious at the head of the field; the new sure thing.
So, unsurprisingly, the bookies had closed the market on Sunday in Shanghai, only for DJ to go from 22 birdies over three rounds to none at all, and from just five dropped shots in three days to five in a single afternoon.
The usual reasoning is the cliché that golf is a maddening game which lends itself to these sudden explosions of mediocrity.
The other cliché is that DJ’s mind is never concerned with dwelling on such calamities, and that Sunday’s collapse will have been forgotten by however long it took for him to get to the private jet.
Maybe, but that blissfully carefree guy was the previous DJ, before he seemed to finally get out of his own way.
He’s still World No 1 – which just goes to show how amazing that run in February and March was – but you can’t argue it’s been a disappointing season for him, given how he seemed poised to take the game by the scruff of the neck prior to his slip down the stairs.
There’s no one who has had the
Johnson seemed poised to take the game by the scruff of the neck before his slip down the stairs
sustained consistency that Tiger had. There’s no sure thing. Maybe that’s actually good for the sport.
Casey’s change of heart a tribute to Bjorn’s persuasion
Perhaps it was ultimately predictable that Paul Casey would rejoin the European Tour and put himself in the frame for the Ryder Cup in Paris next year.
It was predictable, for sure, that the Englishman would dismiss various ideas which seemed to have influenced his choice to relinquish membership prior to the Hazeltine selection process – a remaining grudge from not being selected by Colin Montgomerie in 2010, and a reported antipathy with Thomas Bjorn, vice-captain at Hazeltine and of course captain of Europe this time.
Even if he says now it didn’t have a long-lasting effect, I still think Casey has a strong point about 2010. Monty picked his friend Padraig Harrington instead, and the Irishman barely contributed in terms of points.
But if he and Bjorn ever didn’t get on, it doesn’t seem to be the case now.
The Dane reached out to Casey and quickly found he was pushing at an open door.
Having taken time out to settle his young family in the US, Casey found he missed the Team Europe vibe more than he expected.
Casey has now publicly thanked Bjorn for his sensitivity over the issue, and declared he will renew his membership and seek selection for Paris.
Even if the timing is all wrong and he doesn’t make it, the 40-year-old’s experience and influence – especially among the legion of young English players – could be a useful tool.
Either way, it will be good to see Casey back playing on this side of the Atlantic.