Even the Americans seem to be struggling to come to terms with their stunning success Saturday. “Good old-fashioned American teamwork,” was one paper’s rather ironic verdict. But it was teamwork, and of the highest order, in quite stark contrast to the miseries of last year at the K Club. How many times this week did the Americans snatch victory from the jaws of defeat by digging that little bit deeper? The International players have been going round saying it’s because the Americans now play this team format, and particularly the foursomes, every year, unlike their rivals. Garry Player for one ...

That must have been some team talk Gary Player gave his men Friday morning. I imagine he pointed out how close Thursday’s encounters had actually been and how easily things might have tipped the other way, for all they ended in a near US whitewash. A few rousing ‘up and at ‘em’ words to finish and bingo, we’ve got a heavyweight contest on our hands. Maybe the Americans were also a bit cocky going into Friday’s matches. Luck, or ill luck, also played its part of course - I think I would be plenty miffed if, like Phil Mickelson, I eagled ...

How’s that for openers? And who said the US doesn’t do team competitions? This might not be my favourite event, but that was as compelling a day’s golf as I’ve come across in a while. The Americans really did seem fired up for the job. Worldgolf.com’s Brandon Tucker brought up an interesting take on this after chatting to Charlie Hoffman at the Viking Classic. Hoffman thinks the point of the FedEx Cup was to get the American guys together and instill some camaraderie. I think the actual point of the FedEx was to generate some increased public interest at the end ...

Being European ‘n’all, the Presidents Cup doesn’t do it for me like the Ryder Cup. Strikes me as a consolation event for those golfers not privileged to be from the upper-right-hand-side of the Atlantic. This awkward concept of an “international” side inevitably lacking the cohesive strength the Europeans can muster is one reason the Americans get to show they’re not such bad team players after all. Which is why I find it surprising how many pundits are fingering the Internationals as favourites this week. One report had the Americans as underdog to a “potent” International squad virtually on home territory, even ...

The story of how Steve Flesch suddenly began playing tournament-winning golf is a load of balls, quite literally. After duly wrapping up this one without too much sweat he talked of how his season had been going to hell in a handcart, to the point where it sounded as if he was ready to chuck it all in. Then came his eureka moment: he changed virtually all his gear and hit his way to a confidence-inspiring 5th place in the US Bank Championship in July. What followed was a pretty spectacular run of results that has brought him close on ...

Leading the straw-clutchers this Sunday are those playing up the fact that Steve Flesch is not one of the PGA Tour’s most prolific last round scorers. He’s 171st in the Tour list for last round scoring and those figures put him 57th of the 65 left in this competition for whom figures are available. Certainly, on average, he has played his last rounds more than a stroke worse than his immediate challengers. But it doesn’t take Nobel-level mathematics to work out that a stroke is not four strokes, which is his current lead. To throw this one away, Flesch would have ...

Memo to Atunyote golf course staff: stop watering the greens. The golfers are not going to straight out admit it, but in a roundabout way they have let the cat out of the bag - the greens are being a little too generous. Atunyote is a pretty generous course all round, what with fairways as wide as aircraft carriers. The men who run the course have also been hoist by their own petard in their attempt to outsmart the bombers. They have succeeded to an extent by lengthening it, but in doing so have made things a whole lot easier for ...

Maybe lengthening the Atunyote course has worked, because the bombers were not exactly in the ascendant in round one. Joint leader Jeff Gove is certainly no heavy hitter - he couldn’t get his measured drives to average more than 274 yards when the distance merchants Thursday were reaching 310 and more with ease, even on these damp fairways. The key to the first round was superior iron play to hit the greens and follow up with a hot putter, which is exactly what Gove did. Up alongside him is Chad Campbell, who wielded the hottest putter of the day (Gove was ...

Back to earth with a bang this week as we return to what the PGA season is like when there’s no FedEx Cup competition around. Only one player ranked in the top 30 and that’s the under-achieving Henrik Stenson. So all you FedEx naysayers would be happy with this week-in and week-out would you? That’s clearly not the case with the legion of honest punters who are staying away in droves - the Betfair winner market is struggling to get into six figures and failing. For the doughty few that remain there’s problems aplenty. This is a newish course to the ...

Tim, well done. Can’t say I was overly enthused by the way your new competition ended in a piranha-like feeding frenzy, but against what was achieved overall that’s a minor quibble. You know Tim, you can be a bit of a mean mother at times, but maybe you have to be, given the plethora of different interests you have to juggle every week as PGA Tour Commissioner. You stuck to your guns, railroaded the FedEx Cup (two words PLEASE Tim) past a sceptical public - and not a few players into the bargain - and produced four weeks of mostly superlative ...

If there’s one thing I’m pretty sure of, it’s that this wasn’t what Tim Finchem had in mind. The PGA Tour commissioner must have foreseen Tiger Woods walking away with his beloved brainchild, the FedEx Cup, without too much hassle. Indeed, despite all the hoo-ha it created, I would guess he was more than happy Tiger skipped the first “playoff” to help ensure the semblance of a four-week chase. But there’s no way he would have wanted the grand finale, the supposedly nail-biting climax, to end in such a mad scramble to see who could out-birdie the other as the East ...

Where’s Rory Sabbatini when you need him? Too far down the table to warrant any provocative remarks about Tiger Woods, that’s for sure. Instead the media, stuck for storylines now that Woods has virtually wrapped up two competitions in the same amazing front nine streak, tried to drum up some offhand remarks by Woody Austin in an attempt to rattle Tiger’s cage. It didn’t work. For one, Austin as good as admitted that his putting lapses Friday had given Tiger the cushion to go on to victory. Of course, as Woody said, Tiger can be beaten when someone’s up there with ...

Of course it’s a coincidence, but isn’t it kind of spooky that East Lake sits gripped by a relentless heatwave all summer, then as soon as the PGA’s band of brothers sets foot on the course the heavens open? Maybe there’s a marketing opportunity here that Commissioner Tim Finchem hasn’t thought of. Anyway, despite dire predictions of more of the same Friday, it now looks possible they’ll get all their golf in even with the additional first round games still to be completed. Let’s hope so because yet again this is stacking up to be a great weekend of golf, ...

How green is my golf course? Depends on who you read. For some the state of East Lake’s greens is shocking enough to warrant the sacking of PGA Commissioner Tim Finchem, others are wondering what the fuss is all about. I had visions of balls hopping, skipping and jumping all over the place. In fact it looks like the greens will play slow, but fairly sure with only three potentially troublesome holes where the pins will be kept away from the worst areas anyway. So it looks like a hot putter could still win the day, which answers one of my ...

You’d think they’d know when to quit, the FedEx Cup naysayers. Even though two competitions of the utmost quality have blown the wind out of their sails they try to struggle on with the oars. So now the FedEx Cup is a disaster because the greens at East Lake for the Tour Championship are in a parlous state. Here’s a classic example from the Daily Herald, a site covering suburban Chicago: “For a series that already has taken more body blows than Gerry Cooney, the FedEx Cup suffered its biggest yet Sunday.” Body blows? One or two players skipping a ...

How good was that? Steve Stricker’s immaculate performance in Saturday’s third round, with the eagle at the eighth the icing on the cake, reinforces the astonishing transformation in his fortunes. He is only the second player in 10 years to hit all of Cog Hill’s greens in regulation in a single round. Sunday the revival meets its sternest test. Victory two weeks ago in the Barclays, assured as it was, will be nothing for Stricker against winning Sunday over Tiger Woods. It’s bound to be tough. There’s no way the world number one wants to come second two weeks in a ...

Could everyone just shut up about the FedEx Cup for a little and let us concentrate on another engrossing competition? It’s tough finding the golfing wood for the whingeing trees. There was plenty of good golf on offer Friday, despite the rain and wind. Like Justin Rose the day before, Camilo Villegas looked poised to run away with the event, only to be dragged back to reality over the final stretch. Even so, the spider man is into a very impressive phase. Although he struggled with his putter Friday, Rose is another tour virgin who might fancy his chances of breaking ...

Battle fatigue looks to be setting in among our band of merrie golfing men. How else to explain Geoff Ogilvy propping up the leaderboard at 7 over after three top ten weeks? The stats suggested he might suffer, especially where the rough is punishing players like it is at Cog Hill, but 34 putts to get home? Someone who has got on top of his putter is Tiger Woods, who only needed 25 to get round Thursday. This week its his irons that again need a little attention. And he too needs to steer clear of the rough, the effect of ...

So now we know, thanks to Tiger Woods and Ernie Els. It’s that dratted pension that’s got all the top golfers so uppity. Why should they have to wait for their money until they’re too old even to lift a golf stick, let alone swing it? Hang on though, didn’t I read that they actually get to pick it up at the ripe old age of 45? What an impatient bunch. You can give me the prize any old day - I don’t mind hanging on a bit for a cool 10 million bucks. Hang on. I forgot how ...

It’s the new Phil Mickelson talking point: which is more important for Lefty, his victory in The Players or triumph in this bruising toe-to-toe encounter with the best golfer in the world? The Players is a major (ish) and they don’t come much better than that, although it would be nice to see him bag the Open Championship at some point. But XM Radio’s Maureen Madill captured my thoughts after Monday’s Deutsche Bank win: this was a pivotal victory in which he stared down Tiger Woods for all the world to see and may finally have laid to rest the ghost ...

Tiger Woods may well feel he’s been let out of jail as he prepares for Monday’s final round. He left TPC Boston thinking he’d be six shots back, but the final gap is only half that. No great hurdle for the man who came from three shots back to sweep past Vijay Singh with a stunning 63 here last year, the first player to win from behind on day four since the competition started in 2003. He’ll need a similar fast start this year - he eagled both par 5s on the front nine to be 6 under on ...

It’s interesting how differently two people can say exactly the same thing. For Rory Sabbatini, getting paired with Tiger Woods in the final round of a competition is basically ‘Yeah bring it on, Tiger’s beatable’. For Phil Mickelson it’s simply ‘That would be fun’. But you know he and Rory are as one on what they mean. Rory’s line, though, is guaranteed to get right up Tiger’s nose and fire him up. Phil’s “fun” can hardly be so counter-productive, even if it does echo Butch Harmon’s “fun summer” challenge after Lefty won The Players. I certainly know which out of Rory ...

Have the changes to TPC Boston caught out the old hands? While the “big three", with a total seven from 12 possible previous visits here, stumbled their way around the course Friday, the three leaders only boast three previous visits between them. Reinforcing the notion is the fact that the best player of the struggling threesome was Phil Mickelson, who like Mike Weir among the top trio has no course form at all. But for one horror hole that he triple-bogeyed, Lefty would be a much more serious threat. As it is I would be surprised not to see him make ...