11.11.2024

Once upon a time a $1 million prize for winning a sporting tournament would have been a front-page story. No more.

Already this week, two Kiwi sportspeople, neither absolute household names, have been recipients of 7-figure prize packages. Erin Routliffe and her Canadian doubles partner shared US$1.5 million in prize money for winning a women’s double tennis title in Saudi Arabia and on this day, Steve Alker, by no means our leading golfer, nonetheless picked up US$1 million for winning the season-ending

Charles Schwab Cup on the USA Seniors Golf Tour.

Ah… yes there’s plenty of good money to be made in them golf and tennis hills these days.

Other Kiwi golfers had other things on their minds over the past week.

Sam Jones, after an encouraging rookie year on the DP World Tour, didn’t earn quite enough to ensure his playing card for 2025, so he went off to Spain last week for another crack at the dreadful Q-School. Sam is there with 155 other hopefuls from all around the world, trying to nail down a top 20 finish which will guarantee him his playing rights for next year. At the time of writing this column, he is 37 th after 3 of the 6 rounds. It’s a tough, mentally and physically draining exercise - 6 rounds in 6

days - a career-defining week for one and all.

Life, however, was a lot more cheerful for 53-year-old Steve Alker after banking his US$1 million dollars, finishing the season-long points race on top for the second time in his short Seniors career. For a golfer who spent the best part of 20 years on regular tours around the world, living for the most part off the smell of the proverbial oily rag, life has just done him a 180-degree turn. He never complained as he scraped together a miserable return year after year, just kept on plugging away. Then since he turned 50 and started playing Seniors golf, it’s like the golfing gods just turned on the

cash tap and haven’t bothered to turn it off.

Alker finished second behind Bernhard Langer, the 66-year-old German in the final event of the Champions Tour for 2024. It was a closely run thing as Alker and Langer played the final hole, separated by 1 shot. Unfortunately for Alker he couldn’t make a 12-footer for birdie on the last green which would have forced a play-off between the Kiwi and the German. However the significant marker here for Alker was that in finishing second, he overtook Ernie Els who was the leading points scorer in the $1million dollar race for the title before this final event got underway. Unfortunately for the normally highly consistent Els he couldn’t quite find his rhythm this week and

had to settle for a 13th place finish and in doing so surrendered the $1 million bonus to Steve Alker.

Across the pond and down in the Middle East desert Europe’s top players were warming up for this week’s Race to Dubai Championship finale where the winner could walk away with up to US$10 million. The warmup event in Abu Dhabi was won by the 39-year-old Englishman Paul Waring who opened up this tournament with rounds of 64 and then a course record 61 in Round 2. From that point on Waring was never headed. Whenever he got into some trouble his ever-reliable putting stroke usually extricated him from any real scoreboard pressure. It was a truly sterling showing from the quietly spoken Englishman. He had a bevy of golf’s heavyweights chasing him down on the last

day headed by Rory McIlroy, Tommy Fleetwood and Tyrrell Hatton among others. Rory, playing only his 5th event since the Paris Olympics back in July, roared home with an 8 under 64 but still finished 2 shots adrift of Waring.

Rory, I suspect, will always remember this last round for the highly improbably birdie he plucked out of nowhere on the drivable 352-yard par 4 13th hole.

McIlroy’s drive drifted away to the right, veering away and over a deep bunker and coming to rest in knee-high fescue grass or as Wayne ‘Radar’ Riley, the colorful and highly amusing Australian ground commentator observed, “trying to find that ball in there would be like trying to find a golf ball in Donald Trump’s hair”. Well Rory found it and against all odds decided not to take ‘an unplayable’ and so with all the considerable power he had, he smashed and lashed his club through the thick grass and managed extraordinarily to hit the ball out and up onto the front lip of the bunker in front

of him. The ball fortuitously didn’t roll back into the bunker but just dribbled onto the edge of the green. Rory was left with a 55-foot putt over rolling terrain and then a sharp break down to the hole. Miraculously the little Irishman drained this improbable putt. Never have I heard a gaggle of British television commentators scream with such surprise and amazement over a putt. Talk about the screaming meemees, these guys sounded like some of those awful Australian rugby league commentators who go off the wall whenever a big try is scored.

Rory and company will be in action again this coming week in the rich Race to Dubai finale and hopefully there’ll be more off the wall comic lines from Radar. He’s well worth a listen, not that I’d imagine they’d let him anywhere near a microphone if this event was being played at St Andrews.