No doubting the Thomases
Thomas Pieters and Thomas Detry won the World Cup at the Royal Melbourne Club for Belgium. The amount of top golfers who swerved the event is indicative that golf is not a team game, Ryder Cup excepted.
Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson preferred to hoover up the moolah in a winner takes all showdown for just under $10m in Las Vegas.
For all that, the tourney generated interesting golf.
The Belgian pair went into the final day 5 ahead of the field. When the younger partner Tomas Detry had an attack of the nerves which afflicted his short putting and the Aussie pair of Mark Leishman and Cameron Smith began to close in, I have never heard more biased TV commentary than from the Aussies with every missed Detry putt cheered.
When Cameron Smith holed out from the bunker to make the lead just one shot commentary became cheer-leading.
Fortunately for my bet and the standards of broadcasting objectivity, Tom Pieters who is a superb golfer with power driving and metronomic putting steadied the ship and in the end the win was comfortable.
Two young golfers who I would flag up for honours in 2019 and worth backing are Abraham Ancer of Mexico and Cameron Smith of Australia.
I fancied Ancer in the Mexican Open two weeks ago. He finished up the leaderboard and the following week won the Australian Open.
At 20 he must have a fine future ahead of him to emulate his countrymen Peter Thomson, Greg Norman and Adan Scott.
Over in Honk Kong on the European Circuit young Aaron Rai won.
The 22 year old of Asian background played with calmness and courtesy to achieve his first tourney victory.
He had to hold off Matt Fitzgerald the same age who was putting brilliantly.
We often admire the conveyor belt of American talent emerging from the college system but Ancer, Smith, Rai and Fitzgerald illustrate there is emerging global talent too.
