It’s been the year of the procession, with the three majors won by veritable street, and the weekend’s Senior Open at Royal Porthcawl followed the trend.
The Masters was won by Bubba Watson with none of the traditional drama on the back nine. Martin Kaymer had the US Open effectively won after 36 holes.
Even if my call for the engraving of the Claret Jug to start on Friday night at Hoylake turned out to be a touch premature, it was only delayed for 24 hours as Rory McIlroy dominated from start to finish.
So it was with Bernhard Langer’s win at the gloriously golden Porthcawl – which looked every inch like the 11th course on the Open rota, as it could be before too long.
Langer won at 18-under, lapping the field by 13 strokes. After a couple of uncharacteristic lapses in the final rounds the last two Senior Opens, culminating in the double bogey on the 18th at Birkdale last year when a bogey would have won, he was back to his ruthless best.
Such was the astonishing, record-smashing nature of the win that some are now suggesting Langer must get the attention of Paul McGinley to be a possible wildcard pick for the European team at Gleneagles. Some were already suggesting that Colin Montgomerie, a long way second at Porthcawl and the winner of the previous two Senior majors, might get consideration as well.
To which you have to sayfor goodness sake, stop getting carried away.
Admittedly, Langer, even at 56, is an incredible physical specimen. It’s also not beyond the bounds of possibility that his considerable reserves of mental strength and fortitude would make him a valuable team member.
But Montgomerie himself, while fulsome in his admiration of his long-time friend’s achievement, hinted at the reality when he talked afterwards about his won next assignment, which is the PGA Championship at Valhalla, which he qualified for by virtue of his Senior PGA Championship victory. “That’s a totally different ball game,” admitted Monty.
The extreme lengths of the major championship courses and the PGA Centenary Course for the Ryder Cup are a world apart from the Senior circuit, even a track set up in trickier fashion like Porthcawl at the weekend.
Although Langer might well have outplayed the main tour guys with his experience and skill on a baked course like that, Gleneagles in late September is another matter entirely.
Given Bernhard’s notorious pace of play he and Rick Gibson were a full hole out of position on Sunday – there would also be the possibility we might not get finished before sunset.
McGinley isn’t exactly short of viable wildcard choices when looking down the ranks. It’s more than likely he’ll have to be looking to use at least a couple on the likes of Luke Donald, Ian Poulter, Lee Westwood, Graeme McDowell, Stephen Gallacher
And although this isn’t the stuff that the fans are concerned with, tour politics also looms large. What does it say to the rank and file of the European Tour if McGinley plucks a veteran from the round-bellies rather a player who has accumulated points for a year, maybe falling just a hair short of the qualifying mark?
Finally, the precedents for picking a supposedly tried and tested veteran with a wildcard are not at all good.
The most famous example was Lanny Wadkins picking his old college buddy Curtis Strange in 1995. Strange went 0-4 for the weekend, including the ultimately crucial singles loss to Nick Faldo which helped Europe win on US soil for only the second time.
Even last time, most people thought Davis Love did a pretty good job as a US captain but his Achilles heel was his two veteran wildcard picks, Steve Stricker and Jim Furyk.
Thought to be mainstays and backbone for a young team and picked ahead of Hunter Mahan and Rickie Fowler they ended up winning one point out of a possible eight. The Miracle at Medinah might not have happened had Love picked the two younger guys, both with strong matchplay pedigrees.
If there’s one over-50 I wouldn’t mind seeing in the Ryder Cup team, it’s Miguel Angel Jimenez, who has proved his calibre on the main tour yet again this year. But as a general rule of thumb, you’re better going with youth and vigour, even a rookie, rather than turning back the clock.
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The right people could turn it into a comedy sketch; a golf club has a vote about getting to vote in a forthcoming voteyou really couldn’t make it up.
Whatever, the significance of the R&A’s decision last week to open up the proposal to admit women members to postal votes cannot be underplayed.
Most observers agree that this makes it almost certain the proposal on September 18 will be passed and women will become members of the R&A at last. That doesn’t mask some of the oddities of the process, though.
First of all, an extraordinary business meeting of the club was called to make the postal vote decision. This was highly irregular under club rules, and begs the question; if they could call an extra business meeting for that, why not call one for the main vote as well?
Secondly, it seems the R&A hierarchy may have wriggled out of a major miscalculation. There was no question of a postal vote being allowed when the proposal to admit women members was revealed in May.
Only when it was quickly pointed out in these pages and elsewhere that the R&A bigwigs were risking the decision being taken by less than a fifth of the club membership and the vote being hijacked those likely to block the proposal did the idea of a postal vote suddenly gain wings.
That reflects the considerable nervousness within the club that the vote would be blocked, dragging the R&A into considerable further disrepute.
Happily, it’s the correct decision. All of the membership gets a vote in a historic change in club rules; what could possibly be wrong with that?
If only every R&A decision down the years had been as logical