Golf, by TourMiss

Russell Knox has 73 good reasons to look forward to today’s (THUR) ‘Take 2’ restart to the prestigious Players Championship. It will be exactly one day short of a year since the PGA Tour despatched a group text to all Tour members and caddies mid-evening on the 12th March, 2020 to advise the Tour’s premier event had been cancelled. The next day, and now known as golf’s Black Friday, Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan advised the Tour was going into an immediate three-event lockdown. That would ...

The PGA Tour has stepped-in introducing a ‘Bryson Rule’ to deny Bryson DeChambeau any advantage in this week’s restart to last year’s cancelled Players Championship. DeChambeau brought his rocket-like drives into sharp focus last week in tackling the famed par-5 sixth hole on route to victory at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. The new World No. 6 set a new driving distance record at Bay Hill’s sixth first on Saturday with a monster 370-yard drive and then breaking that on Sunday ...

Scotland’s David Drysdale had realised five years ago close-hand the excitement that big-hitting Bryson DeChambeau is now bringing to the ancient club-and-ball game. Drysdale was drawn to play alongside the then 22-year-old visiting American and England’s Chris Paisley for the opening two rounds of the 2016 Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship. DeChambeau had joined then reigning Masters and US Open champ, Jordan Spieth and Rickie Fowler, and the eventual winner, accepting invitations to tee-up in the ...

“Trust me, it won’t happen!”  With Rory McIlroy ruling out rumours the European Tour will not be staging three events next month in Florida McIlroy was speaking ahead of this week’s ‘second’ defence of his Players Championship crown at TPC Sawgrass after the Tour went into lockdown a year ago and just a few hours post the close of the opening round of their flagship event at Ponte Vedra in Florida. It has been suggested in a London newspaper that three European ...

Bizarrely for someone who spends some 30 weeks a year directly reporting on golf, this week marks 12 months since I’ve spoken in person, face-to-face to any Tour player either side of  ‘The Pond’. The day was Friday the 13th of March, 2020 and now known as tournament golf’s ‘Black Friday’. The last player I spoke face-to-face was Henrik Stenson and he was behind a shopping trolley following Mrs. Stenson around the Whole Foods store at Ponte Vedra, Florida. The store ...

Rory McIlroy’s disappointing Arnold Palmer Invitational showing will seen him likely drop outside of the top-10 on the world rankings for a first occasion in three years since winning Arnie’s event in 2018. For McIlroy the story of the last day was two balls into the water after just six holes and not even King Neptune could salvage McIlroy’s Bay Hill fortunes. McIlroy did well in walking off with only a double-bogey ‘7’  on route to an eventual round of 76 for a three-under par ...

The Scottish trio of Robert MacIntyre, Martin Laird and Russell Knox will be seeking less difficult scoring conditions heading into this week’s PGA Tour flagship Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass at Tour HQ in Ponte Vedre All three Scots came unstuck over the weekend rounds with MacIntyre eventually posting scores of 71, 71, 76 and a gutsy last day level par 72 to be just outside the top-40 finish at two-over par. MacIntrye’s opening two rounds was pretty respectable at the Tour’s hardest ...