Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
It’s been an eventful spell in the world of golf, emotional and sad, exciting and exhilarating.
Exciting news came recently with the announcement that the Ryder Cup is on its way to France and Le Golf National in 2018 and I think we all know that is a good and sensible decision.
It’s difficult to award the match to a country where the course has yet to be built, and that is where a number of the other bids fell down. What the tour have done is gone for certainty as this marvelous course is tried and tested and now it has strong funding, it will only get better.
The site, 20 miles south west of Paris, can host 100,000 spectators if necessary and its opening and closing holes are as you would expect from such a respected designer as Robert von Hagge.
Quite simply they will produce great excitement from Friday through Sunday. It will also have a lot of class with some of the functions being held in King Louis’ Palace of Versailles.
The money that will be spent during the next seven years will turn Le Golf National into a worldclass course and it will do much for golf in France. There are just over 400,000 golfers in France and, in the coming years, every one of them will pay an extra three euros towards building driving ranges along with six and nine-hole courses that will be affordable to the masses.
The French Open is the oldest tournament on tour outside the Open and they have been great supporters of the tour since it’s inception in the early seventies. They deserve the Ryder Cup, just as Spain did in 1997.
Ian Poulter won the Volvo World Match Play with a 2&1 victory over fellow Englishman Luke Donald in the final in Andalucia.
Donald came into the match needing victory to claim the number one ranking for the first time but came up against an inspired Poulter.
Poulter holed a 10-foot par putt on the par-three 17th to wrap up victory and end Donald’s 14- game winning run in match-play competition. Poulter won golf’s ‘other’ World Match Play event in Tucson last year and was succeeded as champion by Donald back in February.
Victory earned Poulter £704,000, while Donald’s consolation was a cheque for almost £370,000. He will have another chance to take the number one spot from Lee Westwood in the European PGA at Wentworth this coming week, although I’m sure Lee will have a say in that and will not give up his crown easily.
Whilst we’re on the subject of world rankings, I couldn’t help but notice that Tiger Woods has dropped to his lowest position in the world rankings since April 1997. The American is 12th in the latest update, sandwiching compatriots Bubba Watson (11th) and Dustin Johnson (13th) in unfamiliar territory.
Winless since the 2009 Australian Masters, Woods has been steadily losing points since surrendering the top spot to Lee Westwood in October of last year. The 35-yearold, a 14-time major winner, has spent a total of 623 weeks at the head of the rankings during his career.
But he has struggled for fitness and form since his well documented off-course struggles last year.
Woods withdrew from the recent Players Championship after just nine holes because of injury. He has already had four surgeries on his left knee and the latest setback – a combination of mild strains to his ligament and Achilles – comes at an inconvenient time with the second major of the year, the US Open from June 16-19, fast approaching.
With every week that goes by the gap gets wider and wider for Tiger and if he is to fulfill his destiny and surpass Jack Nicklaus’ record 18 Major wins he had better find some form and quickly. If these struggles had happened say five years ago you could have easily seen him come back quickly, but he is getting older, the body is not healing and the balance of golfing power is shifting to a new generation.
The competition is fierce and more difficult than ever; I don’t think we have seen the last of Tiger by any means, but the story might have a different ending than we all
