The memory of his collapse at the Masters in 2016 was the biggest threat to Jordan Spieth’s Open victory – overcoming it shows how tough a golfer he isThe second shot was the one. It flew left and fell deep in the crowd gathered around the 1st green. From there, Jordan Spieth chipped on and missed a putt from 12 feet for a bogey. So he had dropped a shot before he had even made it off the 1st hole. The atmosphere crackled as the crowd realised that whatever else had happened in the last three days, whatever else would happen in the next four hours, one thing Spieth’s final round would not be was easy. Related: Jordan Spieth’s astonishing 13th-hole...
A Royal Birkdale scorcher saw a teenage Spaniard make a run for glory, a qualifier endure 121 mishaps and the stories amass on the Lancashire RivieraBritain sweltered in record temperatures during the summer of 1976. Office workers cavorted in the fountains of Trafalgar Square. Fire swept across Surrey heathland. Snow machines were deployed to spray melting Cumbrian roads. West Yorkshire police officers were ordered on health grounds not to wear ties between 6am and 10pm. The Automobile Association reported a record number of overheating engines. At the Henley Regatta, gentlemen were permitted to take off their jackets for the first time in 137 years. Even the EEC’s butter mountain began to melt. Metaphorically speaking, that is, with dairy cattle slaughtered...
Using a new course in Erin Hills two years after Chambers Bay’s questionable debut hurts the US Open’s identity in a sport where playing in the greats’ footsteps draws us inChange may be afoot in golf’s calendar but the US Open’s position remains nonnegotiable. The United States Golf Association, in moving towards a series of championships around this time of year, has made it both publicly and privately clear that its biggest one of all will continue to conclude on Father’s Day.Elsewhere, confirmation may not be slow in arriving that the US PGA Championship will revert to May from 2019; a long-awaited scenario which would have knock-on impacts for both the European and PGA Tours. The US Open, therefore, would...
Keith Pelley, the European Tour’s chief executive, has introduced new ideas but is looking to push boundaries further to stop UK participation tailing offThe problem with highlighting golf’s struggles is that those at the summit of the game have never had it so good. The US Open this week offers a record prize fund of $12m (£9.5m). One must look seriously hard at the PGA Tour’s schedule to find a tournament which does not bestow immediate millionaire status on the winner.And yet the feeling persists that golf is a sport from a bygone age, being left behind by those considered more trendy. Other obvious realities play a part; golf remains time-consuming, not always easily accessible and generally expensive. Related: Sport...
The European Tour hopes a significantly improved course can give a much-needed boost to the PGA Championship which, despite some notable absences, has plenty of attractions including Ian Poulter and Justin RoseProperly pinpointing the status of the BMW PGA Championship has not been particularly easy in recent times. Criticism of the Wentworth venue was commonplace and commonly vehement, to the extent where Europe’s finest players did not deem the tournament worthy of participation despite it being one of precious few in Great Britain or Ireland.The BBC withdrew live television coverage, albeit that this was part of a bigger, depressing picture. And then, in what was surely a strategic error, the European Tour’s chief executive, Keith Pelley, broke with what had...