Ewen Ferguson’s second DP World Title of the season – and a third for Scotland this year – augurs well for Scottish professional golf’s future.
Even with Robert MacIntyre having a slightly down year – still plenty time to address that, of course – the new breed of young Scots have moved on in 2022. Ewen has two wins in his debut season. David Law and Connor Syme have been knocking on the door in recent weeks.
No guaranteed points for winners now
The Governing Board of OWGR today announces that the enhancements to the system revealed in August 2021 are now in effect after a 12-month notice period.
Read more @ https://t.co/k0bLNNgSX3#OWGR #OfficialWorldGolfRanking pic.twitter.com/fPbamk2BjX
— OWGR (@OWGRltd) August 9, 2022
We’ve been through Ewen’s particular journey before in T2G and no need to cover that ground again. But what was really interesting – and indeed sobering – was the value of this win in Northern Ireland compared to his maiden victory in Qatar in March.
In Qatar, Ewen picked up 24 world ranking points for the win. At Galgorm, it was only just over 8 points. And the field in Ireland was marginally stronger than Qatar – a Strength of Field rating of 46 to 41.
This is because of a change in the Official World Rankings instituted this week. Ewen’s 24 points for Qatar were a stipulated minimum for a DP World Tour winner. From now, the strength of field rating will wholly determine the ranking points.
This is, you have to admit, completely reasonable. There is no good reason why winners on the DP World (or Asian Tour) should get guaranteed points regardless of the strength of competition.
But it’s a significant blow to the ‘minor’ tours and especially the DP World. (This was all decided well in advance of LIV’s gestation, for those of you putting two and two together and making six).
Time has moved on, and Covid took its toll
How it finished @World_Inv_Golf 📊#WorldInvitational
— DP World Tour (@DPWorldTour) August 14, 2022
I’ve heard many lament why the DP World Tour allowed this to happen, wondering if Seve is spinning in his grave. Well, maybe he is, but the reality is that time has moved on.
They couldn’t have stopped this even if they wanted. Unless of course, you really favoured the indentured servitude of signing up with the Saudis.
There’s rumours the 2023 DP World Tour schedule will be reduced to a smaller number of better-paying events. The ‘pandemic specials’ we’ve become used to in the last couple of years will be gone.
A leaner schedule is the only way forward. Some players, if they win one of the 10 PGA Tour cards, will try a transatlantic schedule, or play the US full-time.
There’s a good many for whom that upheaval would be too much. They’ll have to make do with limited pickings that are left.
The Spanish invade Angus
What a day at Carnoustie for the Boys' & Girls' Amateur Championship Finals 🏆🏆
Watch the highlights 👉 https://t.co/9VATXUUZ1H pic.twitter.com/RclRs2RZg2
— The R&A (@RandA) August 14, 2022
The Girls’ and Boys’ Championships held simultaneously at Carnoustie, Monifieth and Panmure last week were another welcome antidote.
For me, it brought back great memories of Boys’ and Girls’ past. Like a 15-year-old Sergio Garcia having a meltdown when he lost in the last 16 at Dunbar in 1995.
Or Pitlochry girl Eve Muirhead reaching the last 16 at Monifieth in 2008. Not sure what happened to her, but hopefully she’s got a bit of time to enjoy her golf these days.
But it also brought a sobering realisation that we in Scotland are a bit behind the other nations in the post-pandemic environment.
Scotland had 22 players in the two draws – entry is predicated on World Amateur ranking, so these are the best of the best. There were just five Scots in the Girls’ competition, and only one – North Berwick’s Grace Crawford – reached the matchplay stages.
We had 17 boys in their draw, six making the matchplay. No-one got into the last 16 of either event.
It should go without saying that no criticism whatsoever should be aimed at these young players.
Some of them are impossibly young – Grace and Connor Graham of Blairgowrie are still 15. Some are having really great and successful seasons – Grace, Connor, Ollie Mukherjee (just 16). I believe our very best players are as good as anyone’s.
But you can’t ignore some things. Spain arrived in Angus with 37 players. They had TWENTY girls in their team.
12 of them qualified for the matchplay, and seven of their 17 boys. More than half of their entire team made it into the two draws of 64.
We shouldn’t be so precious not learn from others
Cayetana Fernandez Garcia-Poggio is loving life on the links at @CarnoustieGolf 🏌️♀️ pic.twitter.com/hRk8SEX3HU
— The R&A (@RandA) August 14, 2022
The Spanish won both qualifying medals, Paula Sampedra Martin in the girls and Jorge Siyuan Hao in the boys.
Hao came with a big reputation, and lived up to it. Both myself and a colleague – who is usually a better judge of potential than I – thought he looked class.
Scottish Golf, the amateur governing body, took a financial pounding during the pandemic, and they’ll take time to recover. I’m also not one of those who think that simply because we’re The Home of Golf ® we should expect to have better players than anyone else.
But clearly, we shouldn’t be too precious about our status to assume we can’t learn from other countries. We don’t have nearly the resources of England and only half as many registered players as Sweden.
But we’re much closer in numbers, cash and facilities to Ireland, who had four qualifiers for the girls, or to Spain.
And the Spanish are clearly doing something exceptional, especially in numbers of quality and quantity of female players.