The Golfing Weekend
There was much joy in the Pargiter household when thanks to Jeremy Chapman in the Racing and Football Outlook I had both winners in the weekend tournies: Dustin Johnson in the BMW at Crooked Stick and Joost Luiten in the KLM Dutch Open.
DJ is an impassive player who robotically hits greens in regulation. He always was a massive hitter, the longest on tour, but under coach Butch Harman his short game and putting have improved immensely. His third round on Saturday evening was one if the best I have seen when he scored birdie after birdie. In the final day he went mano v mano against Paul Casey who played formidable golf but the English golfer, who is sadly ineligible for the Ryder Cup, chased down DJ valiantly. It made for great sport, the most exciting golf I have witnessed since Stensen v Mickelson in the Open.
Over in Holland Dutchman Joost Luiten came into this own on the final round when Aussie Scott Hend fell away. Like DJ his tee to green hitting was thrillingly accurate. One feature of golf champions is the ability to recover.
Neither DJ nor Luiten had it all their own way, Luiten for example landed one drive in the drink but both immediately recovered after any failing.
Captain Davis Love will announce his final four American places tomorrow. The general view is that he will prefer experience to current form with places for Bubba Watson, Ricky Fowler and JB Holmes with one rookie spot, probably Justin Thomas. This means with three rookies and the already picked Brooks Koepka and JB Holmes the Americans have the definite edge in experience. The Europeans have Willett, Fitzgerald, Wood, Sullivan, Cabrera Bello and Pieters which might explain the decision to omit Russell Knox, a leading money winner on the PGA circuit for the more experienced Westwood and Kaymer. Fowler and Watson are out of form and have poor Ryder Cup records with 2 wins between them. I still mark the Americans as favourites. I am taking the missus to IKEA this week to spend the weekend winnings so I have a clear run and conscience for the Ryder Cup starting on the 29th September.
