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YOU'LL NEVER BEAT THE IRISH. . .
by Irish Independent
Damien McGrane proved Harrington is not the only one with scary eyes and scary focus as he stormed nine strokes clear at the China Open, while Peter Lawrie showed iron resolve in beating Ignacio Garrido in a thrilling play-off at The Spanish Open.
Ireland's Tour entourage swells to 10 this year with gritty Gareth Maybin, Michael Hoey and Jonathan Caldwell earning cards.
Among the likely highlights of 2009 will be teenage ace Rory McIlroy's debut at the US Masters, while McDowell could go very close to upstaging Harrington and Tiger at the British Open in Turnberry.
RACE TO DUBAI ...OR DESTRUCTION'
THEY'RE off and running in the inaugural Race to Dubai and already US Ryder Cup heroes Boo Weekley and Anthony Kim, plus PGA Tour regulars Camilo Villegas and Adam Scott, suggest we'll be seeing them on the regular European Tour this year.
The Tour's EUR140m, five-year deal with Leisurecorp represents a massive coup, especially at a time of deep recession.
Throw in the anticipated move of the Leisurecorp-sponsored European Open to the week before the 2010 Open Championship at Turnberry and, potentially, you have the dawn of a new era for professional golf in these islands.
Should the Irish Open, strengthened by the new 3 deal, also move to a traditional seaside links, the Tour will at last be able to have a mini 'Links Swing' in the run-up to The Open. The world's top names would come running.
Yet there's a distinct element of risk in this Dubai deal.
In these parlous times, America's biggest names, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, are expected to remain loyal to their native Tour and not seek European Tour membe-rship.
After five years, if Tiger does not join in the Race to Dubai, it is difficult to imagine any multinational corporation continuing to plough so much money into the project. What is going to happen then?
Indeed, having moved its centre of gravity -- and shortly its head office -- to the Emirates, the Tour must also be concerned by the pessimistic economic forecasts for Dubai itself.
For the moment, however, their relationship with the Sheikhs is a marriage made in heaven.
TIN-MAN FALDO ON RYDER SCRAP HEAP'
LET'S get this straight. Nick Faldo wasn't the worst Ryder Cup captain in living memory.
He's second-worst ...tied with fellow Englishman Mark James (Brookline, 1999), a country mile behind Hal Sutton, the hapless cowboy gunned down at Oakland Hills in 2004.
Paul Azinger ran rings around Faldo, even coming up with the innovative idea of arranging his team into three four-man pods.
Based on in-depth personal profiling, his system ensured that every 'pod member' would be perfectly prepared to partner any of the other three at any time.
Azinger also set up the golf course at Valhalla to best suit the home side. The rough was cut back, ensuring a birdie-fest, while the greens ran considerably faster than at the previous three Ryder Cups.
Some argue, with justification, that captains don't win Ryder Cups, players do.
And, without doubt, America's 12, inspired by Boo Weekley and Kentucky heroes Kenny Perry and JB Holmes -- not to mention the fantastic home crowd -- got their just deserts.
Yet many a Ryder Cup has been lost to poor captaincy and Faldo's was headed in that direction from the moment he overlooked Darren Clarke for a Wild Card.
His failure to appreciate the enormity of Clarke's achievement in winning twice on Tour in 2008 says much about the Englishman. This heartless act was offensive to anyone with the remotest sense of fair play or human compassion.
It set a sorry tone which persisted throughout the matches, from the moment Faldo made that calamitous opening address to his "bring your waterproofs" slight on 2010 hosts Wales at the finish.
If results justified his faith in Ian Poulter, this rare success was heavily outweighed by a series of inexplicable decisions by Faldo.
Long after the matches ended, Faldo then showed his astonishing lack of 'cop-on' by offering himself for another term. Plainly, he has absolutely no regard for the feelings of others.
Faldo was one of the most clinically efficient robots in the history of golf -- nothing more, nothing less. If he only had a heart!
VIJAY'S VICTORY MARCH goes on
VIJAY SINGH made nonsense of the second edition of the FedEx Cup.
After registering his first WGC win at The Bridgestone, back-to-back victories at The Barclays and The BMW allowed Singh take an unassailable FedEx points lead to the 2008 Tour Championship.
So the FedEx Cup once again ended in anti-climax as the Fijian collected golf's biggest cheque, $10m, in 22nd place in Atlanta.
Changes made to the FedEx Cup format for 2009 should make it right at the third bite.
Singh, who has claimed 22 of his 34 PGA Tour wins in his 40s, is as fit and sharp as ever and cannot be counted out of a Major title at age 46.
Yet he'll have to wait until June's US Open to surpass Jack Nicklaus.
At the 2009 Masters, Vijay will be a month younger than Jack was when he won at Augusta in 1986.
NINO CAN STILL BE EL HOMBRE
JIM FURYK nearly fell off his chair when someone included Sergio Garcia in the list of 20-somethings making a big noise on Tour.
"Sergio is still in his 20s?" said Furyk in disbelief. "Really? When did he start, age 12'"
Garcia, 29 in January, has become so much part of the furniture after 10 years in pro golf, it's easy to forget he's still a kid in golfing terms.
Not the nicest kid either, judging by Padraig Harrington's recent comments that they "have nothing in common". It takes someone very special to irritate the affable Dubliner.
In fairness, Harrington dealt a couple of hammer blows to Garcia at Carnoustie and Oakland Hills, setbacks that would have done mortal damage to the Grand Slam hopes of an older player, yet the Spaniard is young and cocky enough to recover.
Sergio is world No 2 on the strength of wins at Sawgrass in May, as tournament host in Castellon and the HSBC in Shanghai, not to mention five second places, including the US PGA.
It's too early to dismiss him as Europe's new 'Monty at the Majors'. Garcia's Grand Slam dreams could come true when the US PGA returns to Hazeltine next August.
NORMAN CONQUEST falls just short
SECOND honeymoons don't come any better than Greg Norman's.
Married to Tennis hall-of-famer Chris Evert a few weeks before the British Open, the 53-year-old Aussie clearly went to Royal Birkdale with a light heart and a carefree swing.
Love almost conquered all on one of the least likely weeks in the season -- this storm-tossed tournament was as tough as they come and Norman led Padraig Harrington by one with nine holes to play. Then the Dubliner cut loose, blitzing the rest of the field, with some of the most spectacular golf seen at the Majors since Tiger ripped-up Pebble Beach in 2000.
It didn't matter one jot if the elderly Aussie's legs gave out at the finish. There was only honour and glory in this close call for Norman.
IS GERITOL ON THE BANNED LIST'
DRUG-TESTING is routine in most sports but pro golfers still struggle with having to put anything but the ball in a cup! Testing was introduced on the world's leading Tours in July 2008 but US veteran Fred Couples waited until December before being asked to provide his first sample at the Chevron Challenge.
"I was a little pissed at first," he said, blissfully unaware of the pun. "It took me two hours to finish it. I just sat there and talked to the guy -- he actually was a very nice man."
He added: "I told him if this happens on Sunday and I miss my flight, I'll go ballistic. So I'm drinking water and he said if I keep doing that, the test may not take. If that happened, he said he'd have to follow me back to the hotel and go to dinner with me. That's what the drug test is."
Couples said if he'd known he'd been drawn for testing before going out, he wouldn't have relieved himself on hole 14.
Testing a 49-year-old seems incongruous, while it was abominable to force Annika Sorenstam to provide a sample after her final LPGA Tour event.
Yet testing is still a necessary evil.
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