TELFER’S THOUGHTS 6.10.25

A week it’s said is a long time in politics, but not so long thankfully in golf. A week ago, we watched in despair as profanities and vulgarities filled the air, all over a golf tournament for goodness sake.

A week on, tranquility seems to have quickly returned to the somewhat calm and dignified ranks of golf.

Half the successful European Ryder Cup team took to the fairways of three of Scotland’s best golf courses last week and a handful of America’s best were alongside them, competing for the prestigious Alfred Dunhill Championship. It was won, appropriately enough you might say, by one of Europe’s Ryder Cup heroes, Bob McIntyre, with one of his Bethpage teammates, Tyrell Hatton, finishing second. Another statement perhaps on where the current balance of power lies in transatlantic golf.

I imagine a certain amount of suppressed bitterness might linger for some time within the souls of many of the European team, given how poorly they were treated by that admittedly minority of American supporters.

The television coverage conveyed some but by no means the full magnitude of the vulgarity hurled at the likes of Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry. To discover the true nature of what was being said you had to go no further than YouTube which had numerous video clips from fans’ phone cameras showing a variety of vile actions - a beer mug clipping Rory McIlroy’s wife’s hat, Lowry being physically restrained by his caddie from marching into the crowd to deal with a fan hurling personal

abuse at McIlroy while he was trying to tee off and so on.

As is the case with television coverage worldwide these days, television producers and directors are under very clear instruction from sports bodies not to show any untoward spectator behaviour, which is why, for example, you’ll never see on your screen these days a naked or even a fully clothed streaker racing across a football or rugby field.

Fortunately, there doesn’t appear that any ill-will from the Bethpage Ryder Cup square-off has soured relationships among the 24 players. They will, of course, be playing with and competing against each other from week to week in various tournaments from now on, as evidenced in Scotland last week, just days after the Bethpage furore had taken place.

Just how fan behaviour will play out at the next Ryder Cup in Ireland in two years’ time is another matter.

As an interesting observation, it is somewhat baffing that a golf event between two teams, whose countries together comprise at best a mere 10% of the world’s population, commands such compelling interest worldwide.

Somewhat lost in the recriminations swirling around the Ryder Cup last week was yet another very heartening performance from our rookie golfer Kazuma Kobori, this time at that Alfred Dunhill Championship in Scotland won by Scotland’s own Bob McIntyre, the first Scotsman to win this important title in 20 years.

Kazuma’s final round of 67 included no less than 6 birdies on the front 9. He added a further birdie on the par 5 12th and was on target for a top 20 finish, only to double bogey the 17th . The 24-year-old Kiwi catapulted himself from 87th place at the start of the last round into a tie for 40th , thanks to that final 5 under par 67. It lifted his world ranking to 173rd and he pocketed another E22,000 to hoist his earnings so far this season to E704,000 or close to NZ $1.5 million, quite remarkable for one so young. Goodness only knows what he might achieve if he can add some significant yardage to his driving. At the moment his driving average has him only as the 175th longest driver on this Tour, averaging 278 yards per hole or around 255 metres, some 20 metres behind the Tour’s average. Yet despite that clear shortage he suffers from off the tee, he ranks 3rd in greens in regulation, another startling statistic. Add to that his outstanding putting ability and you start to see why this youngster is pulling such big pay cheques most weeks.