Golf, by TourMiss

Seamus Power will head into Thursday’s starting Sentry Tournament of Champions in Hawaii carrying the admiration of two Irish-born major champions – Padraig Harrington and Shane Lowry. Power is among just 39 players, including 38 fellow PGA Tour winners from 2021 and also Olympic Gold Medal-winning Xander Schauffle, contesting the first event of the New Year on the Plantation Course at Kapalua in Maui. The West Waterford golfer earned his place in the Euro 7.3m event on the back of last July’s ...

One of the rewards in reporting on tournament golf is to admire first-hand how new golf courses hosting new tournaments have matured. I was present at the 1991 Dubai Desert Classic and have been amazed not only at how the Majlis course has matured but how much Dubai has grown.  It is the same in attending the second Qatar Masters and admiring how the Doha Golf Club has matured and also how the course, once on the outskirts of the Qatar capital is now surrounded by buildings. Scotland’s Kingsbarns ...

The Official World Golf Rankings (OWGR) have been released for the first week of 2022  and with Spaniard Jon Rahm enjoying the honour of leading the world’s best into what is now the 36th anniversary of the Rankings that first began at the 1986 Masters. Here is the golf’s current top-50:- 1. Jon Rahm, Spain 2. Collin Morikawa, USA 3. Dustin Johnson, USA 4. Patrick Cantlay, USA 5. Bryson DeChambeau, USA 6. Xander Schauffele, USA 7. Viktor Hovland, Norway 8. Justin Thomas, USA 9. Rory ...

In working the PGA Tour, we’ve spent many hours driving the Interstates of the U.S. I could probably mention every bend on the I-95 between West Palm Beach and the Georgia border and I could tell how many ‘bumps’ there are on the I-10 between Jacksonville and Texas. Of course, I’m exaggerating but you get the idea. A great thing about driving between Tour stops is the opportunities it presents compared to flying.   I cannot remember the number of occasions we’ve ended-up ...

For the Emirates Golf Club and host to the 2022 Slync.io Dubai Desert Classic, it was an exercise delving into the past in looking ahead to the future. It’s remarkable that the first golf course to be built on the Arabian Peninsula will at the end of January 2022 celebrate the 34th anniversary of the tournament. The Carl Litten-designed course was built in 1987 and two years later joined the European Tour schedule. Back then, the course was sitting all by itself laid out in the desert far away ...

Scottish Open champ Min Woo Lee is loving a best-ever Christmas gift of an invitation to the 2022 Masters. Lee has officially ended the year as 49th on the World Rankings to secure an automatic Augusta National tee time next April. The 23-year-old Aussie faced an anxious last few weeks before ending the year inside the top-50 of early and the assurance now in the New Year in receiving an envelope postmarked ‘Augusta GA’, and containing an invitation into the 83rd Masters. It was Lee’s stunning ...

* This article first published in January 2021 and updated January, 2024 There’s always that unique joy in playing a golf course you’ve not played before. Normally, it is a golf course you know well or you’ve read about. Also, that delight is magnified if you’ve managed to play well. There is also the joy teeing up at a golf course you know relatively little about but where you also play well and while missing a couple of birdie putts, you do manage a handful of pars. Adding ...