Tom Kite, unsuccessful captain of this year's US Ryder Cup team, can be admired for having the honesty to retain the same excuse for home consumption. The former US Open champion remains convinced that his team lost because they were not sufficiently familiar with Valderrama.
By way of emphasising the point at the official inquest by the PGA of America, Kite has recommended that the next US captain should ensure that the players make early visits to the Country Club, Brookline, which is the venue for the 1999 matches. His successor, to be named in December, is expected to be Hale Irwin.
"Course knowledge was a big reason we lost," he claimed. "Also, in my opinion, we got a tremendously poor break in the weather. Knowing that we had a short time to prepare for the golf course and to prepare for the tournament, I was hoping for reasonable weather to practise in."
He went on: "Whatever little edge you can get, is obviously going to be very important, certainly with the competition between the elite players of Europe and the US as close as it is right now."
Kite also defended his alleged lack of visibility on the course during the matches, compared to the ubiquitous European skipper, Seve Ballesteros. "Seve's a heck of a lot more hands-on than I am," admitted the American. "But it's not like I wasn't out there. I never left the golf course, but Seve was more in their face. And that offended a lot of their players."
If Irwin gets the job for 1999, as seems likely, he will enjoy the initial advantage of being a current celebrity on the US tournament scene. This arises from the astonishing feat of becoming the first player from either the senior or regular tours, to break through the $2 million barrier in earnings in a season.
Imagine it. Tiger Woods needs to earn $39,430 from his defence of this week's Las Vegas Invitational, to emulate the achievement of a player more than twice his age. But it would be an ideal situation in which to do it - in the tournament which gave him his first win as a professional, 12 months ago.
After earning $10,650 for a share of 26th place behind David Duval in the Walt Disney tournament last weekend, Woods is closing on the $2 million mark but Irwin pushed his season's earnings to a staggering $2,131,364 by winning the Kaanapali Classic on Sunday.
There is little consolation for Woods in the fact that he has played one tournament fewer - 19 to Irwin's 20 - than the three-times former US Open champion. Despite the remarkable popularity of the US Seniors' Tour, Irwin wouldn't have had access to the level of prize money which has been available to Woods. With nine tournament wins so far this season, the older man did it simply by achieving the sort of dominance that was anticipated from the Tiger, when he captured the opening event of the season.
After Las Vegas, the only remaining official money event is next week's Tour Championship, in Houston. That is the target of Nick Price, who aggravated muscle damage in his left side when playing for Zimbabwe in the Alfred Dunhill Cup last weekend.
"I would particularly like to win the Vardon Trophy, which I am leading at the moment," said Price. This award goes to the player with the lowest adjusted scoring average based on a minimum of 60 rounds. The adjusted score is computed from the average score of the field at each event.
For 58 rounds, Price has a scoring average of 68.71; Tiger Woods is next with 68.78 (68 rounds) and Greg Norman, four times winner of the award, is third on 69.03 (47).
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