Ban on travellers from Europe stacks the odds even further in favour of Steve Stricker’s team at Whistling StraitsThe vast array of superlatives attached to the Ryder Cup ignore the recent propensity for predictable outcomes. Since Europe trounced the United States in Michigan, 17 years ago, there has been just a single away victory. When that transpired, at Medinah, we all saw fit to brand it a “miracle”. The past three Ryder Cups have been won by the length of a par five. Related: R&A scrap ‘no-readmission’ policy at Open tournament from 2022 Related: Stacy Lewis left out of United States’ Solheim Cup team Continue reading...
Carelessness on the closing greens on Saturday cost the Texan, but second place has returned him to the world’s top 15When Jordan Spieth completed his final round at Royal St George’s and turned to acknowledge the crowd, he kept his head down. Perhaps it was the evening sun cutting over the gallery that caused him to avert his eyes. Or perhaps it was something else. A sense of disappointment, maybe.The former boy wonder of golf had to watch Collin Morikawa assume that mantle, as the 24-year-old won the Open at the first time of asking. But Spieth, 27, is on the back of one of the biggest comeback seasons in golf, and it was only the consistency of the champion,...
Brazil is unsure whether to host the Copa América and attending Euro 2020 will be arduous but it is the way for nowIt was one of the more remarkable episodes in a PGA Tour season. Jon Rahm, having stepped from the 18th green on completion of his third round at Muirfield Village, put head in hands after being spoken to by tournament officials. His caddie batted aside a camera crew as they pursued what was evidently a breaking story. The simple inference was that Rahm had been told that someone close to him was seriously ill; or worse.As it transpired, Rahm had tested positive for Covid‑19. It had been a complex process, instigated by him being identified as a contact...
Eisenhower’s drinking partner and the man who helped make the Masters what it is today surely deserves more recognitionTucked away in a corner of YouTube sits the kind of cheesy 1976 sales pitch Augusta National had to make to Asia decades before Hideki Matsuyama came along. Cigarettes, whisky and terrain far less manicured than is the case for Masters of this day and age feature. So, too, Philip Russell Wahl Sr.“We have had the finest group of players, the greatest competitors, on our golf course,” says Wahl. “That’s what makes the Masters great.” And then the payoff: “The Masters is my life.” Related: Hideki Matsuyama is Japanese but his victory matters for Asian Americans Related: Gary Player’s apartheid history is...
Player invited Lee Elder to play in South Africa and was praised by Nelson Mandela but admits his past is not blamelessIt has been almost 50 years since Lee Elder became the first black man to play in the Masters, and five months since Augusta National announced they were at last going to mark his achievement by inviting him to join Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player as one of the tournament’s honorary starters.So long that when the moment finally came around early on Thursday morning, Elder, who is 86, wasn’t able to get up and swing a club. Instead he sat and watched as Player and Nicklaus did. It was a poignant moment, despite the way Player’s son (and caddie)...