IT HAS been reported in some quarters, including Colin Byrne's Caddies Role column in last Tuesday's Irish Times, that there were atypical gaps in the crowd surrounding the 17th green at Sawgrass during the Players Championship. Reasons mooted for the smaller-than-usual galleries ranged from the sluggish American economy to the absence of a certain T Woods.
A bit like the committee at Augusta, we at Golf Masters HQ like to think our remit runs beyond running only our own competition.
We have a duty to protect and promote the game of golf. So we at least got a T Woods involved; the Banbridge five-handicapper Trevor Woods was one of only two managers who could look at the play-off between Sergio Garcia and Paul Goydos and not really give a whit about the outcome.
Imagine the luxury of it. Two players standing on that forbidding tee, the wind howling, the green surrounded by water, the pin cut tight to the right, a Golf Masters bonus-winning cheque on the line and not a hint of tension in the sitting-room!
Of our 12,838 managers, only Woods and Dublin-based Eddie O'Shea could look on knowing that either way they were quids in.
In the end it was Garcia who prevailed and while Goydos won a lot of new admirers for his play and demeanour, Garcia was roughly five times the more popular winner in Golf Masters terms; he appears on 182 teams compared to just 34 for the American.
Both figures are likely to rise after last week's action.
"A great win for Sergio and a great win for Europe," was the verdict of O'Shea, who looked at things from a continental perspective because of his huge interest in the Ryder Cup.
Despite Garcia's victory, O'Shea reckons that the Europeans could be in a spot of bother this year, but that won't stop him going to Valhalla in September.
Since attending the 1997 match at Valderrama, O'Shea, his wife, Hilda, and friends Tony and Carmel Burke have attended every Ryder Cup and have vowed to keep doing so for the rest of their days. Flights and accommodation are already booked for Kentucky even if Cup tickets remain elusive.
Strength down the order is a recipe for success in Ryder Cup and O'Shea's Dare to Dream selection had it this week with six of his seven players in the money at Sawgrass.
Garcia took €150,000 for first place, Goydos earned €120,000 for second, and they were well backed up by Tom Lehman and Brett Quigley (both €65,250 for tied sixth), JJ Henry (€6,750 for tied 42nd) and Jesper Parnevik (we gave him €2,250 for making the cut even though he shot 85 in the final round).
Their total of €409,500 lifted Dare to Dream all of 7,302 places to 68th overall and gave O'Shea our weekly prize of a fourball at Druids Heath. Woods's Woody's All Stars had to settle for eighth on the weekly leaderboard and 368th overall but, more than most, he should appreciate our consolation prize of a Nike Tiger Woods polo shirt.
e-mail: golfmasters@irish-times.ie
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/YVIRIOZQ35EWRPZXR27KGMO6YU.png)