We finally know who the next European Ryder Cup captain will be and Henrik Stenson will be a popular choice.
The announcement would normally have been made by now but it was delayed due to the uncertainty around the Saudi-led Super Golf League.
It looked for a while that it might have been between Paul Lawrie and Luke Donald if the breakaway tour went ahead and Henrik was part of it.
Nobody really knew what was happening so it was right for the tour to take their time over this decision.
It all went quiet on that front and the decision has been made to go with Henrik, who will be a great captain.
I feel sorry for Paul. He deserved to be in the running.
He is a major winner, he has played in the Ryder Cup, been a vice-captain and he has given so much back to the game. He has a lot of respect from his peers on tour and I’m sure he would have been a great European captain.
I also think Henrik will be a great fit.
He will embrace the challenge but he is facing an uphill task given the United States’ 19-9 victory at Whistling Straits last year.
Henrik will put his heart and soul into creating the right team environment. He has a great personality and very easy to get along with.
He is also a winner. He will think he can put a plan in place to lead the team to victory in Italy next year.
We have some promising young European golfers and a core of players around which he can build a team.
The hard work starts now for him but I’m confident he will be up to the task.
One man who was certainly up to the task was Cameron Smith at the Players Championship.
It was the Australian’s biggest win to date and he played some magnificent golf. His chipping and putting was unbelievable. His total of 101 putts is the fewest ever by a champion at the Players.
Fire with the flatstick 🔥 pic.twitter.com/padZP52We4
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) March 15, 2022
He made it interesting by going in the water at the 18th but he recovered brilliantly with his chip into the green. It showed exquisite control.
Sawgrass always throws up plenty of drama and this year’s event – with the unusual Monday finish due to the weather disruption – was no exception.
I felt a great deal of sympathy for Paul Casey who finished third but landed a terrible break on the 16th when his perfect drive down the fairway landed in a pitch mark which prevented him from being able to go for the green in two and scuppered his chances of victory.
I think that incident may lead to a rule change. It is effectively an embedded ball so you should get a free drop. If it was his own pitch mark he would have got a free drop but because it wasn’t his pitch mark he didn’t. That doesn’t seem fair.
Hopefully common sense prevails because Paul could have won that event had that not happened.
Russell puts local knowledge to use
It was great to see Inverness’ Russell Knox enjoy a good week with a top-10 finish. He made a great putt at the last. It is a course he is very familiar with as he lives only a mile away.
He missed a couple of shorter putts or he could have been right in the mix at the top of the leaderboard.
One of the big talking points at Sawgrass was a disputed drop by Daniel Berger which was called out by his playing partners Viktor Hovland and Joel Dahmen.
I think Viktor was right to speak up if he felt Daniel wasn’t dropping in the right place. Players don’t do that enough.
Viktor said he was just trying to protect the field and he is quite correct.
If he benefits from a wrong drop and takes money off the wrong drop then it is not right.
If players are doing that then it should be called out more often.
Fair play to Viktor for standing his ground and saying he wasn’t happy.
Gloomy forecast
I’m looking forward to playing in this week’s Steyn City Championship in Johannesburg.
Unfortunately we have been hit by a huge amount of rain and there is plenty more to come according to the forecast.
The course was playing quite fast and tricky a couple of days ago but it is going to be much softer.
There is a possibility we may only get 54 holes if the forecast is as bad as predicted.
Hopefully the rain stays away and we get a decent few days of golf.
