Golf, by TourMiss

It was a decade ago the 2013 PGA Championship was last staged at Oak Hill Country Club course at Pittsford in upstate New York. I had been in attendance at the 2011 championship when Keegan Bradley denied fellow American Jason Dufner in a play-off in suburban Atlanta, so when Dufner was assured of being handed the gleaming Rodman Wanamaker trophy two years on it was if Dufner had made amends for his play-off defeat. Dufner was then aged 36 and after losing out in a play-off at the 2012 Phoenix Open, ...

Rory McIlroy has seemingly gone all quite on anything to do with LIV Golf ahead of this week’s PGA Championship at Rochester in upstate New York. The double PGA Championship winner from 2012 and 2014 faced the assembled media fielding 28 questions in his pre-tournament press conference. Just two of those questions centered on LIV Golf, and while McIlroy has been the unofficial ‘voice’ of the PGA Tour for so long, not on this occasion. The first question McIlroy faced was the fifth ...

An emotional Jason Day revealed he thought of quitting the game in ending a five-year winless drought to capture a second AT & T Byron Nelson championship at TPC Harding Ranch in Texas. Day, 35, had not tasted success since capturing the 2018 Wells Fargo Championship but is back in the winner’s enclosure thanks to a stunning closing round 62 to claim a 13th PGA Tour win and the 19th victory in his pro career. Waiting to greet the Aussie on a wet Mother’s Day in suburban Dallas was ...

Scot Stephen Gallacher may be the second oldest teeing-up in this week’s Italian Open but he’s also in the field with a younger generation of golfers at heart. Gallacher, 48, received the last of six tournament Rome invitations shortly after finishing top-15 in last Sunday’s Abu Dhabi Challenge. The Bathgate pro already this year has found himself playing where he can, having forfeited full DP World Tour membership at the end of 2022 in not being fully exempt since a first full season in 1999. However, ...

Fifteen years ago a son of a Spanish fish farmer defied the might of the European Tour sensationally hooking a maiden victory in the oldest ‘Open’ golf tournament on Continental Europe. A then 25-year old Pablo Larrazabal left the golf world floundering, leading from start-to-finish in capturing a maiden Tour title at the 2008 Open de France title at the Le National course outside of Versailles. For the Barcelona-born Larrazabal, it was only his 16th European Tour event, having finished ...

Defending Italian Open champ Bob MacIntyre is determined to impress European captain Luke Donald for a second time in some seven months at this week’s Italian Open again on the host 2023 Ryder Cup course in Rome. Last September MacIntyre humbled reigning US Open champ Matt Fitzpatrick in capturing ‘the biggest win in my life’ in a play-off over the Englishman on the Marco Simone course to the north-east of the Italian capital. The Oban lefty did so in a field boasting 13 European Ryder Cup ...

Scot Stevie Gallacher continues to impress, showing his younger Challenge Tour colleagues how it’s done ​in the energy-sapping conditions ​in the inaugural Abu Dhabi Challenge. ​At a​ge 48 years and six months, ​Gallacher ​is the oldest in the field​, battling the extreme heat to ​produc​e​ a bogey-free score of 67 ​and mov​e​ to eight-under on the National club course. ​And no sooner had a delighted Scot handed in his scorecard and there was confirmation on the DP ...