The legacy of pathfinders like Ballesteros, Faldo, Lyle, Woosnam and Langer is in danger of being squandered by the self-interests of many of today's young "wannabes". The issue of appearance money–and say it quietly!–has to be tackled before it destroys the Tour. When players who are being paid fail to turn up, what hope is there?
According to the learned Mr Boulet, the course at Blackstone Golf Club, venue for the Ballantine’s Championship, is relatively flay by Korean standards. It should be noted that this was a judgement made by a man who spent four days viewing proceedings from the comfort of his air-conditioned commentary box. He might have seen the course: but it was from his reconnaissance in a super-intelligent, Rolls-Royce of a cart that required no human intervention at all (in Korea, the land of advanced technology, they drive themselves). These buggies are the land equivalent of an executive golfing jet on auto-land, but without the same sort of thrust. Having walked the course for four consecutive days I can assure you that even mountain goats would be demanding extra rates for the challenge. But well done to the seriously fit Brett Rumford. His towering 5-iron to three feet for an eagle to win the play-off opens another page in the history in the Ballantine’s history books.
From Blackstone to Binhai Lake in Tianjin, the new home of the China Open, which has been sponsored by Volvo for countless years. A flat, open course with really tricky greens and surrounds presented a totally different challenge for Rumford, but his game was tailor-made for the challenge. On Saturday, he missed nine greens in regulation and yet still made nine pars, some of them of Sevee-sque proportions.
It was a brilliant master-class of chipping and putting, and it eventually gave him back-to-back wins, something no Australian has done on Tour since Jack Newton, who achieved the same feat a few years before most of the field was even born.
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