Telfer's Thoughts

What would sport be like without its idiosyncrasies? Those peculiar rules, regulations and crazy out-of-date traditions which nonetheless endure, providing that addictive kick which keeps fans coming back for more.

For example, there were the top and bottom teams in Super Rugby battling it out last Saturday night. Yet the top dog, the Chiefs, had to come from behind to eventually beat the bottom-placed Blues, getting there, in the end, thanks to a missed conversion attempt from the Blues in the dying minute of the match.

Golf also throws up more than its fair share of oddballs. Take last week’s Players Championship. This event is rightly dubbed golf’s 5th Major, but in actual fact the ‘5th’ reference should be dropped. Here’s an event that has all the game’s top 100 players competing, boasting therefore a stronger field than most, if not all, the 4 Majors. The Masters, for example, doesn’t even have a field of 100 players and many of those are past winners, players often 20, if not 30, years past their prime. But hey! This is The Masters and all golf fans rightly love it for what it is. Then there’s the money factor. What would sport be without money, as we hypocritically decry the evil intrusion of the obscene amounts top sports people are paid these days? However the reality is, more often than not, the higher the purse, the greater the prestige attached to a sporting event.

The 2005 Players Championship, for example, carried US$25 million in prizemoney - that’s around NZ$40 million. Very good coin, as they say, if you can get it.

It’s now the largest prizemoney purse in golf. Sure that should not automatically make it a Major, but when you add to that the depth and quality of the event, played every year on one of America’s iconic courses, that’s evidence enough for me to have this event installed as a Major Championship, full stop.

Anyway to the golf... and the so-called 5th Major. The Players Championship won in the end after 5 days of golf. Rory McIlroy picked up his 28th win on the USPGA Tour, but only after a sudden death play-off with journeyman pro, JJ Spaun, ranked 180th on the FedEx Cup list last year. Rory should have wrapped this title up easily inside 4 days, but after surging to a 3-shot lead on the last day with 5 holes left, a storm hit Ponte Vedra and play was suspended for 4 hours. When play resumed, Rory’s game went cold and Spaun grabbed a couple of late birdies to sneak into a play-off, held over until Monday because of bad light.

By way of a change, this play-off was decided on stroke aggregate over 3 holes. Unfortunately for JJ, his title hopes sank in the waters behind the famous 17th green. He whistled an 8 iron straight through a strong headwind and clean over the entire green and into the water. That effectively killed the play-off, Rory winning it easily with a par on 18 and a cheque for US $4.5 million. He also became part of an elite group of double winners of this event, joining Jack Nicklaus, Fred Couples and Tiger

Woods, who’ve won here twice.

Rory now has two significant wins before the end of March, something he’s never done before in his 18-year professional career. He is also arguably the world’s best golfer right now. Officially he still ranks behind Scottie Scheffer, who hasn’t posted a win in 2025. Clearly these will be the two headline acts for next month’s Masters at Augusta. This is the only Major title Rory hasn’t won. The demands of Augusta have been difficult for McIlroy to come to terms with, but he did say after this latest win that he feels his game is a lot more complete in every area than it’s ever been before. He’s also the most popular golfer on the planet and millions worldwide will be hoping he can break his

Augusta duck next month.

Finally, two of our leading male golfers filled their pockets with some seriously big cheques over the weekend. Ryan Fox finished in a tie for 20th place and a payout of over NZ$400,000 to seriously kick start his USPGA year after a couple of missed cuts. However the really big cash went the way of Ben Campbel. Playing in the latest LIV Golf stop in Singapore, Ben raced up the leaderboard during the third and final round last Sunday, posting a 5 under 67 to finish 3rd and take home a cheque worth NZ$2.6 million dollars. Clearly Campbell’s decision to throw his lot In with LIV Golf is paying some quick and handsome dividends. Keep up the good work Ben… you deserve it.