Watching Scottie Scheffler stroll to a comfortable victory on the final day of the Open Championship came really as no surprise. The tall, languid American held a 3-shot lead after 54 holes, but nonetheless there was some chatter that Rory McIlroy, after an exquisite third round 5 under par 66, might nip in and grab the Claret Jug ahead of Scheffler, egged on by a massive home crowd. Alas, the Irishman couldn’t repeat his third-round heroics, playing out a fairly patchy 2 under 69 to finish 7 shots adrift of Scheffler in a tie for 7th place. It can be argued, and the world rankings underline this as well, that Rory McIlroy is the world’s Number 2 golfer behind Scheffler. The difference between the two is consistency. Scheffler pitches up every week and reels off sub par rounds, regardless of the courses, links or parklands, the length and speed of the greens or the height and depth of the rough. Rory, when he’s on fire can match Scheffler, but the Irishman’s problem is he can’t seem to do it for four rounds often enough. When Scheffler’s game is off, which is very rarely, he’ll still patch together a 73 or 74. Rory, on the other hand, when he’s having problems with his driver in particular will clock up 77’s or 78’s. Meanwhile, others, including some of Scheffler’s peers, are starting to talk about him in the same breath as Tiger Woods. Shane Lowry, who played with Scheffler, said he honestly thought he was going to birdie every hole. “It was incredible to watch. If his feet stayed stable and his swing looked like Adam Scott’s we’d be talking about him in the same words as Tiger Woods”. Xander Schauffele, last year’s Open winner, echoing Lowry’s comments, said, “I didn’t think the golfing world would see someone as dominant as Tiger come through so soon. You can’t even say Scottie is on some sort of run, he’s been killing it for over two years now. When you see his name up on the leaderboard it sucks for us.” Yes, valid comparisons up to a point. When these thoughts and others were put to Scheffler, he said bluntly, “Comparing me to Tiger is just silly stuff. He’s won 15 Majors, I’ve won 4”. So guys, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. Remember also Tiger has won 82 tournaments worldwide, Scheffler 20 to date. Of most interest to me is how many more Majors Scheffler might win. He’s just 29, so probably has at least another 10 years of top golf ahead of him if he so wishes. Curiously, if he were to win just 1 Major per year for the next decade, that would take his tally to 15, Tiger’s magic number. The chances of Tiger ever adding to that tally look slim. The two Kiwis in the Open field failed narrowly to advance beyond the first two rounds. Both Ryan Fox and Daniel Hillier missed the cut by 1 shot. It must have been an especially painful moment for Daniel. With 3 holes left in his second round, he was looking pretty. His score was at even par and at that point the cut looked as if it would probably be at one over (plus 1). Unfortunately for Daniel, he then proceeded to bogey two of his last 3 holes to finish at 2 over. Meanwhile the cut came down to minus 1 so he and Foxy, who had two reasonably efficient rounds, both missed out by the narrowest of margins… 1 shot. The final word this week to Jordan Spieth on Scottie Scheffler: “He doesn’t care to be a super star. He’s not transcending the game like Tiger did. He just wants to get away from the game and separate himself from it. He feels it is too much. He differs in that respect more than any other superstar that you’ve seen in the modern era. I don’t think there’s

For as long as professional golf has been around, the game’s honeypot has always been the American Tours - the USPGA and Seniors Tours for men and the USLPGA for women. Change comes slowly to this notoriously conservative sport, whether it’s rule changes, dress wear or tournament routines. The one exception, however, has been prize money, which has catapulted skywards in recent years and not just in the USA. We had the unusual sight last week of the world’s leading men’s and women’s weekly tournaments in Europe, not America, offering a combined total of $17 million in prize money, $9 million for the men, $8 million for the women. Now it’s far from a revolution that is shaking world golf, more just an unusual coincidence. The world’s leading female players gathered on the shores of Lake Geneva to contest their 4th Major of the year, the Amundi Evian Championship, which carried US$8 million dollars in prize money. Meanwhile the USPGA Tour had moved to the town of North Berwick, east of Edinburgh, for the Scottish Open. Here the prize pool was US$9 million. The Scottish Open in recent years has acquired co-sanctioning status, meaning it’s part of both the USPGA Tour and the DP World Tour. It’s always played the week prior to the Open Championship and gives players from around the world a chance to accustom themselves and their game to those distinctively different courses that host the Open every year. They’re usually staged on flat, treeless links courses, fully exposed to the ravages of European weather systems. Unfortunately, Kiwi golfers competing in both events saw very little of the combined $17 million purse. Ryan Fox made a very good start in the Scottish Open, firing a 4 under 66 on Day 1, to lie in a tie for 9th place. That proved to be his only sub par round as he went 70, 74, 72 for the next three to finish in a tie for 65th place. Daniel Hillier fared worse, failing to make the cut. Over on the shores of Lake Geneva, Lydia Ko was not faring much better, shooting two rounds over par - 74 and 71 - which left her at 5 over for the 36 holes and 3 shots off the cut mark. To date it’s been an awful Major Championship season for Lydia and given her great form at the end of last year and the start of this year, it’s mystifying why her form has been so poor. From the 4 Majors this year, Lydia’s results have been T52nd, T20, T12 and a missed cut. Of those 14 rounds of golf in her 4 Majors she hasn’t broken 70 once. However, Ko is resilient and we’ve seen her bounce back spectacularly before from previous ruts she’s found herself in. Let’s hope she can do it again in the year’s final Major, the Women’s Open Championship starting on July 31. While Lydia was leaving Lake Geneva early, an astounding finale was playing out at the end of the Evian Championship. The eventual winner was 22-year-old Australian Grace Kim who eagled the 72 nd hole to get into a play-off with Thailand’s Jeeno Thitikul. Thitikul looked certain to win the event on the first extra hole after Kim was forced to take a penalty drop from just off the 18th green. In a scene uncannily similar to what we saw from Ryan Fox at Myrtle Beach last month, Kim chipped on from some 70 feet off the to the left of the green for a birdie. Thitikul, from a handy position, made her birdie putt for a 4 as well. So back to the tee they went for another crack at this par 5 finishing hole. Once more another eye-popping shot from Kim – from well over 200 yards out, she dumped her fairway wood 2nd to within inches of the hole. Thitikul could do no better than make birdie, leaving Kim with a tap in for eagle to claim her first Major title. But what a finish! She played the last 3 holes of this Championship eagle, birdie, eagle. Not even the much-vaunted State of Origin matches produce excitement of this calibre. Bonza mate!

Kazuma Kobori, the 22-year-old rookie pro from New Zealand, enjoyed his best week on the DP World Tour when he fired a final round of 63 and shot up the leaderboard by 14 places to finish alone in 3rd place at the BMW Championship in Munich this week. That final round of 63 included 9 birdies and an eagle. The Kiwi pro now sits in 44 th place on the DP World Tour rankings. At year’s end only the top 70 golfers from this Tour are eligible to play in the rich Race to Dubai end-of-season championship. Kobori now has an excellent chance of being in that top 70. Sure, there is a lot of golf to be played between now and November, but the consistency of Kobori‘s overall game suggests he’s a good bet to be in that top 70. So far on tour Kobori hasn’t ranked anywhere near the top 100 in distance off the tee, but in Germany he made some big strides here, averaging 299 yards (around 275 metres) which ranked him 56th longest driver in Munich. He remains however the second most accurate driver on the DP World Tour. He lived up to that ranking in Germany, hitting 85% of fairways, while the field’s average was in the low 40’s. He has also fattened his wallet considerably in Germany lifting his season earnings to E373,000 or just over NZ$700,000. Daniel Hillier, the other Kiwi in the field, didn’t fare quite as well as Kobori - he missed the cut. Our top golfing duo, Ryan Fox and Lydia Ko, both had the week off. Foxy travelled to Britain for the first of two tournaments, the Scottish Open this week which forms part of the USPGA Tour, followed by the Open Championship at Port Rush in Northern Ireland. Meanwhile on the LIV Golf circuit, Kiwi pro Ben Campbell picked up a cool US$225,000 for finishing in a tie for 21st place in the latest LIV Golf tournament in Dallas, which was won by Patrick Reed who picked up US$4 million - just staggering numbers. However, feelings between LIV Golfers and USPGA players still run deep if an outburst from former Major Championship winner Lucas Glover is anything to go by. In a golf podcast aired in the USA last week, Glover said he is firmly opposed to any LIV Golfers being allowed to rejoin the USPGA circuit as has been suggested in some quarters as a means to resolve the standoff between the two tours. Glover couldn’t have been more emphatic in his opposition, saying he doesn’t want those players back. “Personally,” he says, “I don’t want to play with them... or see them back here taking part of my pie”. I suspect he is far from alone with those feelings in the ranks of USPGA players. Clearly animosity still exists between the two tours as various spokespeople from the two bodies continue to try and thrash out a compromise deal that would see the two tours unite in some fashion. It looks a bit like the stand-off between Israel and Hamas. Interestingly enough, Donald Trump has got involved with this golf dispute but appears to be having about as much success there as he is trying to bring about peace in the Middle East between Israel and Hamas.

His name may not run off the tongue as easily as Lydia Ko or Ryan Fox, but it may not be long before the pronunciation of Kazuma Kobori’s name becomes second nature to golf followers everywhere. Kazuma Kobori is quickly but quietly becoming the silent achiever of NZ golf. No, he hasn’t set the golfing world alight or even the NZ golf scene for that matter. He is after all still a rookie, still in his first year as a professional golfer. But again last week in the Italian Open where he finished in a tie for 16th place, he has shown a game typified by consistency and accuracy off the tee and a rare touch on the green. Statistics, especially in a game like golf, don’t lie. After 17 tournaments so far this season on the DP World Tour, Kobori sits as the second most accurate driver of the golf ball off the tee and the 31st best putter on tour. Remember these stats embrace well over 200 golfers who play on the DP World Tour, the world’s second strongest tour behind the USPGA Tour. Remember Kobori is just 23 years of age and has only been a pro since November last year. His consistency on this demanding tour, which so far this year has encompassed tournaments on four different continents, has seen him accumulate E223,000 or approximately NZ$425,000 in prize money. That suggests he’s probably done enough this year to have secured his playing card for next year on the DP World Tour. His immediate goal now is probably to finish inside the top 70 money winners this year in order to qualify for the super-rich DP World Tour play-offs in November. At the moment Kobori sits at number 73 on these rankings. We are exactly halfway through the season with still 16 tournaments left before those November finals, so Kobori, given his new-found consistency, would appear to have an excellent chance of being in those finals. To date, from his 17 starts on this year’s tour, he has recorded 7 top 25 finishes. He has only one top ten to his credit, a 4th place at the Singapore Open. Underlining this rookie’s consistency has been the fact that he has only missed 5 cuts, and remember he is playing on courses every week he’s never played before. Add to that a schedule of having to travel far and wide to countries he’s unlikely to have traversed before. This is a far cry from the sheltered, carefully managed career he had as a leading amateur where everything was paid for. Very few NZ golfers, with the exception of Lydia Ko, have posted numbers as impressive as this young man in their first year as a pro, which underlies just how profoundly difficult life is for most amateurs when they first turn pro. So don’t worry if you stumble a bit over getting his name absolutely right. It won’t be long, I suspect, before you’ll know it off by heart. NZ’s other DP World Tour golfer, Daniel Hillier, didn’t fare quite as well, finishing in a tie for 41st place. However Daniel remains 10th on the End of Season Play-offs ranking list. Steve Alker meanwhile had to make do with a 7 th place in the US Seniors Open, 8 shots behind the winner, Padric Harrington. It was the Irishman’s second Senior Major championship title. And finally a word for NZ’s latest pro, Fiona Xu, trying to make it on the USLPGA Tour. Playing in the Dow Championship, a doubles event, Fiona and her American partner, Mariel Galdianao, finished in a tie for 33rd place. It’s been a tough first up year for Fiona. She’s only made the cut twice from her 9 starts, so her prize money in this latest outing of US$6700 was no doubt very welcome.

Our big three - Ryan Fox, Lydia Ko and Steve Alker - were all in the thick of it on their respective tours over the past seven days. None made it into the winner’s circle, but all should be well pleased with the quality of their golf. Steve Alker got closest to the big prize, finishing runner-up in the Kaulig Championship, which also doubles as a Major Championship, at the famous Firestone Country Club. It would have been Steve’s second Champions Major title if he had prevailed. As it was, he took the eventual winner, Miguel Angel Jimenez, to the second hole of sudden death before losing out to a 15-foot putt from the Spaniard, the undoubted star of the Champions Tour in 2025. His win today was his fourth of the year so far. Alker will get the chance to turn the tables on the in-form Spaniard later this week when the next Champions Major gets underway – the US Senior Open. Meanwhile in the latest Women’s Major, the 2025 USPGA Championship, it was the Australian, Minjee Lee, who handled the tough conditions best at the Fields Ranch course in San Francisco. Lee picked up her third Major title to sit equal with Lydia Ko, both having three Major titles to their credit. The tough windy conditions in San Fransico certainly took its toll on the field. Only Minjee Lee and two others managed to break par for the 4 rounds. The Australian held a 4-shot lead going into the last round, but she too struggled in the high winds. All up Lee registered 5 bogeys in her final round, yet her 2 over par 74 was good enough to see her finish 3 shots clear of the field. She clearly was the deserved winner. Lydia Ko chances of winning here largely disappeared on the first day. After 18 holes she was in 58th place after a 3 over par 75, and in danger of missing the cut. To her credit Lydia probably played as well as anyone over the last 3 days, playing the last 54 holes in just 2 over par which saw her climb to a very respectable 12 th place by the end of the 4 th round. She may not have played her best golf in this Major but I think it’s fair to say any course that sees Lydia Ko clock up 16 bogeys, as she did here over the 4 rounds, must rank as arguably the hardest course in all of women’s golf. The world’s best male golfers also had a tough week at the Travelers Championship in Connecticut, the latest Signature event on the USPGA Tour. Only the top 70 golfers on the FedEx Cup list were eligible to play here and that included Ryan Fox. I can only imagine how exhausted, mentally and physically, Foxy must be feeling now. He’s played in 5 of the last 6 weeks. His schedule has included two Majors, the Canadian Open and two Signature events. He made the cut in all 5, won 2 of those tournaments and has set himself up for the next 2-3 years on the American PGA Tour. On top of that, he’s won somewhere in the vicinity of NZ$6-7 million. In this latest event he finished in a tie for 17 th , winning US$252,000 or close to half a million Kiwi. I suspect and hope, for his sake, he takes this week off and gives his body a rest before his next big challenge, the Open Championship, across the other side of the Atlantic coming up in July. He’s in such great form I’m sure, privately anyway, he rightly thinks he can realistically contest for Major titles. His run of form and results over the last 6 weeks, I would suggest, is unsurpassed in the annals of NZ golf. Sir Bob Charles, whose golf was marked by an undeniable beacon of consistency and whose ability to compete week after week was renowned, didn’t compete against the fields which have the depth there is now in the USPGA Tour.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. A journeyman pro winning America’s national Open - a Major Championship on America’s hardest course - but this is exactly what happened. Thirty-five-year-old JJ Spaun, a native from California, emerging out of the rain, the mud and the gloom to roll in a 65- foot putt on the 18 th hole to win the year’s 3 rd Major championship. Perhaps it’s a little unkind to label Spaun as an absolute journeyman. He did record a solitary win on this Tour a few years back and this year took Rory McIlroy to a play-off in the Players Championship before losing out to the Irishman. However he was sufficiently disillusioned with his game last year to seriously consider giving the game away. That thought is unlikely to return to him any time soon I imagine. Another oddity here - after his win he attributed the win in large part to the weather. Heavy rain midway through the day made much of the course unplayable and prompted a two-hour weather delay. That, said Spaun, gave him time to regather his thoughts. When the rain came he had largely played himself out of the tournament after bogeying 5 of the first 6 holes. When he got back out on the course, however, he rediscovered his putting touch which saw him record the only bogey-free round on Day 1. His opening round of 66 gave him the first day lead and he put that down to his putting and his accurate driving. Over the back nine the putts from 10, 20 and 30 feet started to drop. Meanwhile his opponents on the first page of the leaderboard were coming to grief one by one as Oakmont started to take its toll. At one stage no less than 5 players were tied at the top at 1 under par. In the end it came down to that final green. If Spaun could get down in 2 from 65 feet the title was his. A three putt here meant he would be tied with Scot Bob McIntyre. It was a long awkward downhill putt. Getting the speed right was the key to getting his ball close to the hole and when he needed his putter to come to the fore again, it did so. And in she rolled and with it the title - US Open champion. It was a US$4million putt. Another who oddly enough benefitted from the weather carnage was Ryan Fox. He began the day in a tie for 39th place. He got the better of the weather on this final day and made the most of it shooting a 1 under par 69, his only sub par round of the tournament. Then he sat back and watched the awful weather roll in and the scores start to climb and his position get better and better. At the end of it all his 72-hole score of 7 over was enough to see him in a tie for 19th place, one of his best ever showings in a Major. Also it lifted his world ranking by 2 spots to 30 and his FedEx cup ranking improved by 1 position to 24. Financially another great week for Foxy, picking up $US267,000, the best part of half a million in NZ money. His 1 under par 69 was bettered by only 2 players in the field on that 4 th day, John Rahm and Rory McIlroy who both shot 67’s.

In 2025 Rory McIlroy has done it, so has Scottie Scheffler and Seb Straka, the only golfers to win twice this calendar year on the USPGA Tour. Ah… but hold on, we can now add a third name to that list - a bloke called Ryan Fox, who showed his win in the Myrtle Beach Championship a month ago was no fluke. Helped, in no small way, by what Foxy himself called “the best shot I’ve ever played”, he won the Canadian Open in a two-way play-off with Sam Burns, an American. But gee, it was one helluva struggle. Burns and Fox needed four extra holes before they could be separated, thanks finally to a birdie four on the par 5 18 th at the Osprey North course in Toronto. By my reckoning Foxy has become the first New Zealander to win two tournaments on American soil in a single PGA year. Bob Charles won a USPGA title in 1963 and then added the British 0pen title later in that year. Winning two titles within the space of a month makes him, alongside Rory and Scottie, just about the hottest golfing property on the planet at the moment. If there is one incontrovertible fact about golfing life it’s that victories, no matter the strength of the field, don’t come easy. Fox and Burns battled it out for 22 holes each today and in the course of the four holes play-off it was clear the pressure was needling away at both of them. Both had chances which they couldn’t cash in on and both had anxious moments which threatened to end their hopes of victory, but each was able to drag themselves back into the dogfight and finally it was a beautiful high climbing Fox 3 wood from 250 yards which landed and stopped just a few feet from the hole that eventually snapped the deadlock and handed this enormously prestigious title to the Kiwi. The Canadian Open, with a history dating back over 100 years, may not be a Major but it carries enormous prestige and always attracts one of the strongest fields outside of the four Majors. This year’s field was headed by Rory McIlroy no less. Winning it brings a long list of benefits. Just like his win last month saw him into the year’s second Major, the USPGA, so this win gets Foxy into this week’s US Open at Oakmont. He picks up US$1.7million or around three and half million NZ dollars in prizemoney for his Canadian win. His world ranking has shot up to 32 and his FedEx ranking now has him inside the top 30, virtually assuring him a place in golf’s richest tournament, the FedEx finals, later in the year. Invitations to compete in rich end-of-season events will flood in. Sponsors’ doors will open wide. Back here he should, if I can be unashamedly partisan, win the Halberg Sportsman of the Year and probably the Supreme Halberg title as well. This is not just a memorable day for NZ Golf but NZ sport as well. So, for sure we now have a fox on the run and he’s running as fast as his legs can take him to his next big goal - to capture a Major Championship title. He has shown very clearly he now has the game, the mind and the nous to win at the highest level of this sport.

Three years and three months ago Scottie Scheffler was just another little-known American golfer trying his hardest to rack up a win on the USPGA Tour. Well early in 2023 he made that all important breakthrough with his first win. Now three years and three months later he’s added another 15 wins to that opening win in February 2023. Oddly enough it took Tiger Woods exactly the same length of time, three years and three months, to record his first 16 wins. Comparisons with Tiger Woods are an odious exercise. Nonetheless over the past 50 years really only Tiger Woods has notched up as many wins as quickly as Scottie Scheffler. The key to his success? Well, fellow Texan Jordan Spieth might have summed it up best when he said during Scheffler’s latest success, “his club control is elite, maybe the best that’s ever been”. In the end Scheffler won the Memorial Tournament by 4 shots to record his 3 rd win of the year. It was also a very satisfactory week for Ryan Fox. Playing in his first Signature Event, he finished in a tie for 20 th place. Only the top 70 players on tour were eligible for this event or, put another way, Foxy was teeing it up with most of the world’s top 50 players and to stay in the picture for the full 4 rounds and finish in a tie for 20 th place is no mean feat. He beat a lot of players higher than him on the world rankings. It also lifted him from 66 th to 60 th place on the FedEx Cup standings. It should also be noted that for finishing 20 th in this US$20 million tournament he earned US$250,000. If he keeps this form up there will likely be quite a few more big pay days ahead, for the rest of this year at least. Not such good news from two of our usual top performers, Lydia Ko and Daniel Hillier. Lydia, after the superb form she’s shown the golfing world over the last 7-8 months, wasn’t able to produce it in the year’s second Women’s Major – the US Open, the richest tournament in women’s golf. A share of 26 th place was the best Lydia could muster. Four rounds in the 70’s, only 1 of them under par (the second round 71) meant she never featured on the leader board. Two of her traditional strengths - accuracy off the tee and her deadly putting - were strangely missing at the Erin Hills golf course in Harford, Wisconsin. Breaking her game down by the numbers makes for difficult reading. Her problems began on the tee where she was only able to find 36 fairways out of 56. Such poor numbers usually mean difficulty hitting greens in regulation. Lydia only managed to find 42 greens in regulation which meant she missed a whopping 30 greens over the 4 rounds. Struggling to find greens impacted on her putting as well. It’s hard to get the ball close to the pin if you’re playing out of the rough on 30 holes. Lydia was averaging 29 putts per round, another figure higher than what we have come to expect from Lydia, considered the best putter in the women’s game. The title went to 25-year-old Maja Stark from Sweden, a relative outsider ranked outside the world’s top 30 but now a household name in world golf and a prizewinner’s cheque of US$2.4 million to go with the title. Back in Europe, Kiwi Daniel Hillier was very much in with a chance to grab his second win on the DP World Tour. The Kiwi opened with rounds of 66 and 67 to be just a couple shots off the lead at the halfway stage. Alas he wasn’t able to sustain that early round form and shot rounds of 70 and 73 over the weekend, eventually slipping to a tie for 37 th place at the Austrian Open in Salzburg, finishing 15 shots behind the winner, Germany’s Nicolai von Dellingshausen.

It’s been an unusual and probably an uncomfortable last fortnight for the US Senior Tour. This is the one for over 50’s, the one where Steve Alker has prospered greatly. In what appears an unusual move the USPGA scheduled two of the Senior Majors this year back-to- back. Now comes the uncomfortable bit - both tournaments were won by the same golfer, Angel Cabrera, arguably South America’s finest ever golfer. In 2007 he won the US Open and two years later he won the 2009 Masters. Unfortunately there is a lot more to Cabrera than his golfing abilities. He’s also a convicted criminal who in recent years was sentenced to 48 months in prison for his crimes. He was released on parole after serving 28 months in jail for assaulting and threatening two of his ex-girlfriends. Now at the age of 55 he’s been granted membership of the Senior PGA Tour. To win back-to-back Majors, albeit on the Seniors Tour, suggests this fellow has lost little of the skills that brought him two Majors earlier this century. I suspect there’s some measure of disquiet behind closed doors on the Seniors Tour. Some might argue his behaviour towards his ex-girlfriends should have disqualified him from ever playing on any tour. However he has served his time in prison and been released back into civilian life and entitled, by law in most countries one imagines, to resume his normal life. Cabrera himself has opened up about his violent past. He hasn’t tried to walk away or hide from any of the unpleasant behaviours he displayed five years ago. He admits his life was out of control, his problems fuelled and amplified by alcohol. He said life ‘inside’ was terrible - one jail in Argentina is known as the prison from hell. He has publicly apologised to his two ex-girlfriends, begging them to forgive him. No word yet from the girlfriends. Meanwhile back to the golf, Steve Alker with two largely poor rounds by his standards had played himself out of this Senior PGA title after 36 holes, but he did show on the last day what he is still capable of when he fired a 6 under par 66, sparking memories of his last day 63 back in 2022 which carried him to his first Senior Major’s title in this event. In the end Steve finished in a tie for 14th place. No tournament golf this past week for Ryan Fox and Lydia Ko but I’m sure both were hard at work in preparation for their respective big tournaments coming up this week. Lydia is teeing it up in the Women’s US Open, the second Major for 2025 for women and Foxy is readying himself for his big week, his first appearance in a Signature event where the money is huge (US$20 million), a no cut field of just 70 with extra FedEx Cup points and a big pile of world ranking points because of the calibre of the field. Meanwhile across the ditch in Belgium a very mixed week for the two Kiwis plying their trade on this tour. Daniel Hillier missed the cut at the Soudal Open in Antwerp, but yet another cut was made by our rookie pro Kazuma Kobori, becoming the personification of consistency. He’s now made the cut in his last five tournaments and has only missed two this year in 13 starts. His tie for 25th place in Antwerp lifts his earnings this year to E192,000 which equates to something just over NZ$200,000. It’s worth noting as well that Kobori has probably never played any of the courses prior to his appearance at them this year which normally is a significant disadvantage for a player.

Fairly or unfairly there are many in the golfing world who feel the USPGA Championship is very much the ‘poor cousin’ of the four Majors. It doesn’t, they say, have the history, tradition or the majestic tapestry that drapes the other three. And yes there is an element of truth to those claims but just don’t mention them to Scottie Scheffler. This most mild-mannered and unemotional of golfers broke into a maelstrom of unbridled joy after he tapped in on the 72nd hole to grab his 3rd Major Championship. Never before had we witnessed such scenes from Scheffler, grabbing his cap and tossing it into the ground with an almost violent, or should I say passionate, motion. As he hugged his wife and 1 year old baby deeply, one commentator thought he saw tears from the world’s Number One golfer. Remember this is a guy who had already won two Majors, so this wasn’t exactly a brand new experience, especially as he began the day with a three-shot lead. You would have had a hard job finding a bookie anywhere who would have given you odds on Scheffler not winning this thing. His final winning margin of 5 strokes over his nearest rivals rather reinforced his pre-round favouritism. However he was very quick to point out in his post-match media chat that it was an emotionally draining round of golf and it required mustering all of his technical and mental skills to overcome a very poor and indifferent front nine. At the halfway stage his 3-shot lead had disappeared and he now found himself in a share of the lead at 9 under alongside John Rahm, whose putter was running red hot, so much so that one television expert commentator said Rahm is now the favourite to win. That mini implosion of Scheffler’s game clearly prompted a re-think and some swing changes, particularly around his grip. Whatever he did, it worked. No longer was he tugging his drives to the left and missing fairways. Three birdies on 10, 14 and 15 saw off Rahm, who crashed and burned over his last 3 holes, with two double bogeys and a bogey. From a share of the lead after nine, the Spaniard finished in a tie for 8th place and a whopping 7 shots adrift of a triumphant Scheffler. This was for sure a Major championship that produced as tense and electrifying a back nine as any major championship finale in recent times. With his win Scheffler became only the 3rd player, alongside Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods, to have won their first three Majors by a margin of 3 strokes or more. The day wasn’t such a happy one for Ryan Fox who slipped 9 places down the leaderboard from 17th overnight to a tie for 28th place. Nonetheless he can be well leased with his effort. To complete 4 rounds of Major Championship golf under par as Foxy did is something he should be well pleased with. Conditions were particularly tough on this last day at Quail Hollow. A strong wind blew throughout the afternoon and the greens were so slick that trying to hold the ball on the green was nearly impossible at times. Foxy’s 1 over par 73 was only 1 shot worse than Scheffler’s 72, to give context to Foxy’s effort. His world ranking should improve slightly as has his FedEx Cup standing. All in all it caps off the most successful two weeks in Ryan’s career. He must be totally exhausted, mentally and physically. He’ll have a much-deserved break this coming week, then another first and another biggie, into his first foray at a Signature event, the Memorial Tournament. In short, a small field of just 70 starters and US$20 million in prize money. Meanwhile in Alabama, Argentinian golfer Angel Cabrera, who served 30 months in prison for domestic violence before being released on parole in 2023, won his second Champion’s Tour title Major when he took out the Regions Tradition in Birmingham. Steve Alker came up 3 shots short and had to settle for 4th place. However, he retains the Number Two spot in the Charles Schwab Cup race and clearly has his game in good shape ahead of the Champions Tour’s first Major, the Senior

With his spectacular come-from-behind win at the Myrtle Beach Championship, Ryan Fox has joined that most elite and exclusive of Kiwi golfing clubs, those golfers from this country who have won on the USPGA Tour. The club comprised just 7 members prior to today. They now have an 8th member, Ryan Fox. It’s hard to know what will live longest in our memories - his overall victory or that stunning 17-metre chip in from off the green on the first hole of a 3-man sudden death play-off. That one bold aggressive shot has changed Ryan Fox’s career. The rewards that will now tumble towards him are manifold, chief of which begins with his inclusion in the year’s next Major, this week’s USPGA Championship in Charlotte, North Carolina, just a few hours’ drive from Myrtle Beach. He also picks up around NZ$1.2million in prize money for his Myrtle Beach win. His world ranking and FedEx Cup standings receive healthy boosts. He is now ranked inside the FedEx Cup Top 70. If he can stay there till season’s end, he’ll be eligible to play in the FedEx Cup play-offs where he could make millions if he plays well enough. We’ll also see him compete at the Open Championship this year. On top of all of this his win today gives full exemption for 2 full years on the USPGA Tour. Other doors will open to him as well. That old saying “The rich get richer” certainly has application on the US Golf scene. Ryan will now be able to play in rich events, open only to the best players on the Tour. Essentially it means playing for a lot more money but with much smaller fields. It was a classic Ryan Fox showing at Myrtle Beach. His win today, interestingly, followed a pattern evident in most of his wins on the DP World Tour, where he works his way almost anonymously through the first three rounds of a tournament, mixing solid and at times some superb golf, undone to some extent with a spread of bogeys. During his third round of 68, Foxy had no less than 6 bogeys - yes 6 bogeys in one round - but in true Foxy fashion he also nailed 9 birdies. Just remarkable stuff. With all that behind him he took to the final round a couple of shots off the lead, playing patient accurate golf through the first 9 holes, just a single birdie to show for his efforts, but significantly, no bogeys. So from this solid confident base he upped the tempo, continuing to find fairways which let him attack pins. His putter then started to kick in and the birdies began to flow, four of them on the back nine. For me the crucial hole was the 17th , a par three measuring 165 metres. Foxy was now in a 4-way tie for the lead at -14. Here he hit one of his best shots of the day, firing the ball straight at an awkwardly placed pin position, delighted then (as we all were back here as well) to the see the ball come to rest 6-8 feet under the hole. Calm and relaxed he stepped up and drained the putt, then went on to safely par the tough par 4 finishing hole. Two of the golfers behind him, McKenzie Hughes, a Canadian, and American Harry Higgs also got it to 15 under after 72 holes. Then on the first hole of sudden death the “fox” from down under crashed the North American party with that stunning chip from just off the green, which, as Foxy admitted afterwards, never looked like missing and he was walking the shot in from 8-10 feet from the hole, knowing he had read the line perfectly and then hit it accordingly. Many golfers of high esteem have to wait years before grabbing a win on this high-quality demanding Tour. To nab your first victory inside your first 2 years on tour is also remarkable. Sure the Tour’s top 70 players were playing elsewhere in the latest Signature event, but let that not deflect from the size of Ryan Fox’s achievement. So he joins Sir Bob Charles, John Lister, Grant Waite, Frank Nobilo, Michael Campbell, Danny Lee, Craig Perks and Phillip Tataurangi who have won on the USPGA Tour. Of those 8 only Sir Bob managed to win more than once on that Tour. Who would bet now that Ryan Fox won’t join him as a double winner on that Tour? Meanwhile in other parts of the golfing world, Lydia Ko finished 10th on the latest LPGA Tour in what looks like a rehearsal for the upcoming second Women’s Major of the year and Kazuma Kobori continued his excellent run of making cuts, this latest one, the Turkish Airlines Open. Although only finishing in a tie for 52nd place it nonetheless was enough to push him inside the all-important top 70 on this Tour and if, like Ryan Fox, Kobori can stay inside 70, he will be eligible to play in the equally rich end of season DP World Tour finale in Dubai. The rookie Kiwi has now made 9 cuts from his 12 starts on this Tour this year, a very good record considering he has probably not played any of the courses where he’s been making the cut

For the fifth time this year, in 9 starts on the USPGA Tour, Ryan Fox opened with a round in the 60’s. His 5 under par 66 at the Byron Nelson in Texas was his best start from any of those 9 this year. So could this be the week Foxy finally converts a great start into a top 5 finish if not higher? That opening round of 66 saw him grab a share of 5th place on Day One. But what followed was an all too familiar pattern in 2025 as once again he failed to stay with the leaders on Day Two. Three mid- round bogeys and a 4th on the 16th saw him slip rapidly down the leaderboard. Fortunately he pulled a much-needed birdie on 18 that got him back to where he started the day on 5 under - exactly the cut mark. Day Three brought more of the same - 4 mid-round bogeys before a blistering finish which saw him birdie 4 of the last 5 holes for a round of 70, 1 under par. Unfortunately it still left him near the bottom of the field. By now any chance of a high finish had all but disappeared. Again his final round was littered with another 4 bogeys, partially offset by 3 birdies for a 1 over par 72 - the only round of the 4 over par. So , for sure, when you look at his rounds – 66, 71, 70, 72 - it’s hard to be too critical of his scoring, but the fact of the matter is, this was not a strong field by USPGA Tour standards as evidenced to a large degree by Scottie Scheffler’s winning margin of 8 shots. This tournament represented an ideal opportunity for Foxy to make some significant progress up the FedEx Cup points table. I’m sure he personally will be disappointed that he didn’t make a better showing. However the week did represent another cut made, the 6th from his last 7 starts, which suggests he’s not far off the kind of form we have seen from him in recent years. All up he made 18 birdies over his 4 rounds in Texas. Unfortunately he also chalked up 13 bogeys. Now as fate should have it, if he had played the week without a bogey, those 18 birdies he had would have left him with 5th placing overall, exactly where he was at the end of his first round and a cheque for around NZ$500,000. All of that just goes to show how deep and ruthless this Tour is. Have a couple of bogeys and your round goes into free fall as you tumble down the leaderboard. We can’t leave Texas without a word about Scottie Scheffler’s week. His 8 shot winning margin is the highest winning margin since Rory McIlroy’s 8 shot win in the 2011 US Open. His 36 hole score of 123 is the second lowest in USPGA Tour history and his 4 round score of 253 equals the lowest winning score in US history. Is it any wonder he is the Number One ranked golfer in the world? And how fitting that his first win in 2025 should be in his hometown, on the very course where he made his professional debut as a 17-year-old, 11 years ago, with his sister on the bag as his caddie.

It has been a very unfortunate week for Lydia Ko. She woke up early one morning last week with a tingling sensation running down her right arm. The timing of this injury couldn’t have been worse, coming as it did on the eve of the year’s first Major Championship for women, the Chevron Championship. Clearly she felt the medical attention she received was effective enough to allow her to compete in this important event. Lydia being Lydia didn’t publicly reveal much about her injury. However it’s hard to believe her poor showing at the Chevron was not directly linked to the problems with her arm. Lydia only just made the cut, played nowhere near her best golf across the 4 rounds to finish in a tie for 52nd place.  This was the worst of her 5 performances this year, where she has posted 3 top 6 finishes, including a win. While Lydia was struggling near the tail of the field, dramatic events were unfolding around the final hole for Ariya Jutanugarn, the Thai golfer and a 2-time Major championship winner, who had a 1- stroke lead. Unfortunately her second shot on this par 5 ran through the very fast green coming to rest some 25 feet from the hole. Her ball was sitting in some light rough, but camera shots showed it was nevertheless a reasonable lie. All Ariya needed to do was to put the ball onto the green, take two putts and the year’s first Major was hers. Alas, disaster befell the Thai as her club face chunked the grass behind the ball and her chip travelled no more than 6 inches, remaining in the light rough. Trying to recover her nerve from such a setback, Jutanugarn then overcompensated with her next chip which saw the ball run 15 feet past the hole. Inevitably, in her badly shaken state, she missed the par putt and had to settle for a bogey 6 which meant, incredibly, 5 golfers including Ariya finished in a tie after 72 holes, all with their scores at 7 under par after 4 rounds. So all 5 went back to the 18th hole, for a sudden death play-off, probably the very last hole on the planet Jutanugarn would have wanted to play again, given what had happened to her minutes earlier. To Ariya’s credit she managed, along with 3 others in the play-off, to par the hole, but edging them all out with a birdie 4 was Mao Sargo, who was the Tour’s Rookie of the Year in 2024.  Her win today was her first on the LPGA Tour. She becomes the 5th Japanese player to win a Major title and the 4th in the last 5 years. The normal chaotic scenes that rain down on the winner on the 18th green were somewhat muted, as all and sundry shared to some small extent the heartbreak Ariya Jutanugarn was feeling and reeling from. Another golfer, also feeling somewhat depressed with how things went on the last day, was Kiwi Daniel Hillier. Going into the latest event on the DP World Tour, Daniel was just 1 shot off the lead and must have believed his second DP World Tour was in the offing, especially after the way he had played through the first three days, posting rounds of 67, 70 and 68. However, starting his last round with a double bogey 6 on the first hole rather took him out the race for the title. He wasn’t able to re-capture his form from the first 3 rounds, having to settle for a 1 over par 73 and a share of 9th place.  But he did move up the all-important Race to Dubai points table from 7th to 5th. Meanwhile Kazuma Kobori, our 23-year-old rookie, once again made the cut on this Tour, but he too couldn’t produce any of his dynamic skills on the last day and, like Hillier, posted a 1 over 73 to finish in a tie for 45th place. And another tough week for Ryan Fox who, along with his playing partner South African Garrick Higgo, missed the cut at the Zurich Team Classic where birdies were flying off golf clubs like a flock of hungry geese. The cut in this event in Zurich was 14 under par. Yes, you had to shoot 14 under par just to make the cut. Higgo and Fox were inside the cut after the first round of 4 ball best ball, but the following day on the alternate shot they could do no better than a 2 over par 74 and missed the cut by 8 shots .

To the immense pleasure of his many fans, Justin Thomas finally won again on the USPGA Tour, taking out the Signature RBC Heritage at Hilton Head Island in South Carolina. As this was a Signature event it carried US$20 million in prize money, making it probably the biggest pay cheque in Thomas’s career. It was also his 16 th career win, but his first since 2022. Over his first 191 tournaments on this Tour, Thomas won 15 times... that’s a very high win strike record. Yet inexplicably he has remained winless from his last 58 tournaments. That has everyone scratching their heads. How could one of the world‘s leading golfers and a Major Championship winner go so cold for so long? For sure there have been good signs from Thomas so far this year, so to see him finally get over the line and win was not entirely unexpected. There is, however, another important element to this win. Early in his 3rd round, Thomas’s ball landed in a bunker. While picking up loose impediments from around his ball, which he is entitled to do, his ball moved. So tiny was the movement that not even the television camera was able to capture it. However Thomas saw it, and he was the only one. Not even his caddy could have seen what happened inadvertently because he wasn’t in the bunker. To his eternal credit, Thomas had no hesitation calling for a rules official to whom he explained what had taken place. Essentially what Thomas did then was call a penalty on himself. He was penalised 1 stroke for moving the ball after it had come to a halt. No-one on the planet would have ever picked up what had taken place if Thomas had chosen to remain silent. But he didn’t. That is one of the delightfully peculiar aspects of this game. It is very easy to cheat in golf. You will find most golfers playing at any level will have the opportunity to discreetly move their ball out from under a bush or the like. It’s wrong and you should incur a penalty but if no-one else sees you give your ball a little kick, then who’s to know. Very occasionally allegations of cheating by a prominent player surface and some even in the face of irrefutable video evidence remain defiant of any wrongdoing. Fortunately, such incidents are few and far between. In the end Thomas’s honesty paid off because he won the tournament albeit by way of a sudden death play-off. When interviewed after his round, Thomas said his decision to call in a rules official was a no-brainer. He intimated that the idea of winning a tournament off the back of cheating was totally unacceptable to him. Furthermore, with his win Thomas has now moved up to 6th place on the Official World Golf rankings. Ryan Fox did not qualify for the Heritage but a second official PGA Tour event took place in San Domingo in the Dominican Republic. For the 5th time in 8 starts this year Foxy made the cut, but failed to fire over the final two rounds again, finishing in a tie for 59th place. It’s back to the American mainland this week for Ryan where he will team up again with Garrick Higgo for the Zurich Classic Teams Event in New Orleans. Incidentally Higgo won the event in the Dominican Republic, which no doubt will enhance his confidence as well as Foxy’s as they prepare for this event. Last weekend two of our other leading golfers, Daniel Hillier and Kazuma Kobori, were competing in the China Open as part of the DP World Tour. Once again Kobori, the Kiwi rookie, turned in a sterling performance with 4 consistent rounds, finishing in a tie for 20 th place and another very productive payday. This lifts his winning on this Tour to just on E150,000 or close to NZ$300,000 in his maiden year on tour with still another 6 months to go. He's already one of big success stories in NZ golf for 2025. Daniel Hillier, after a good start, wasn’t able to maintain his early momentum and finished in the middle of the field.

It was a coronation long in the waiting but remarkably short in its consummation. Just a simple 3-foot (1-metre) putt from Rory McIlroy on the 72nd green at Augusta saw the Northern Irishman join one of golf’s most exclusive clubs, winners of all 4 Major titles or as it’s popularly called, the Grand Slam of Golf. Just six players in the history of golf have won the Grand Slam - Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Gary Player and now Rory McIlroy. Note, not even Arnold Palmer earned membership, which quite rightly entitles you to be called one of the greatest golfers of all time. Who really could object to McIlroy’s inclusion? That he’s had to endure 11 frustrating years to secure the 4th and final leg of the Slam is nothing short of incomprehensible, given the immense talent of the man. Yet he will probably lie in bed and in the privacy of his own mind ask himself over and over, “How did I win this thing? I missed so many fairways on that last day, I missed short, ever-so-short putts. I double bogeyed the first hole and the par 5 13th but I still won”. He won because of the maturity that he now has at 35 years of age and his ability to remain calm when his clubs and or his swing let him down. Then, in the spirit and character of those names mentioned above, he pulls off shots of breathtaking majesty, clawing back the lead when his tenure at the top looked likely to vanish. Over the four days he played an astonishing array of shots that forever will hold pride of place in the Masters Hall of Fame, none more so than his second from just over 200 yards on the par 5 15 th . He had to hook it violently around a bunch of protruding branches, clear the water in front of the green and let it roll up to within 3 or 4 feet of the flag, all of which he did. Yes, once again he missed a short 4- or 5-footer for eagle, but his birdie gave him the lead again by just 1 stroke. Even though his putter let him down again on the 18th green, once more from an embarrassingly short distance, he remained outwardly stoic. Back to the 18th he and Justin Rose went, this time his second shot from 200 yards left us all gob-smacked as it gracefully landed behind the flagstick and quietly trickled down to within a few feet of the hole. Justin Rose couldn’t birdie his long putt. Rory this time mercifully found the hole and at last he had acquired the most garish, but the most sought-after, jacket in golf. The genteel ‘patrons’ of Augusta discarded their required peaceful behavior and went gangbusters, turning the surrounds of the 18th green into something resembling a Beatles concert. Yes, there were images of demure, well-dressed denizens in their 60s and 70’s who probably last gyrated like this at a Beatles concert back in the 1960’s. Their boy, their hero, at last getting his rich desserts. A boisterous, passionate all-American audience cheering madly as if he were one of their own. Rory, collapsing to his knees in some sort of yoga pose, just burst into tears, threatening to flood the green with this outpouring of joy and relief. As one of the green suits said in the Log Cabin a few minutes later, McIlroy has given us all one of the most enthralling and memorable days in the 90-year history of the Masters. He was absolutely right.

For hordes of golf fans, this week, the second week of April, is the golfing highlight of the year. It’s special because it’s Masters week, The US Masters. Many golf fans, especially in America, will tell you the Masters is the major Major. No doubt part of its enduring appeal is the familiarity of the course. We all know those iconic holes, like they are holes from our own local club - Ray’s Creek the par 3 12th , the two gettable par 5’s on the back nine, that mesmerizing par 3 16th. that throws up probably more holes in one than any other hole from any other Major course. We know these holes so well, we can even tell you now, for example, where the pins will be located for Sunday’s final round. Then on top of the course, there’s its arresting physical appearance, carefully and beautifully groomed for the best part of 12months in preparation for the world’s best. Sadly, our best, Ryan Fox, has missed out on a spot in this year’s Masters. His last chance came last week at the Texas Open, an event he had to win in order to get into this year’s Masters field. Alas, Ryan had one of his worst opening two rounds of all his starts on the US Tour over the last two years. With rounds of 76 and 73, he finished near the bottom of the field at the halfway stage. Quite simply, Fox conceded the strong fierce winds which blew throughout his two rounds got the better of him. So, without Foxy in the field there will be no NZ flag flying above the clubhouse at Augusta this year. The man going into this year’s field who is very much in the spotlight is Rory McIlroy, the in form golfer of 2025. The nuggety little Irishman is probably in his best form since he last won a Major over 10 years ago. With wins in the Players Championship and the Pebble Beach Pro-Am, he’s claimed the two biggest titles of the year so far. However, his challenge is the beguiling layout of Augusta and the only Major title he hasn’t won. More often than not he struggles on the tight demanding fairways at Augusta. There is a certain parallel between the fates at Augusta of McIlroy and Greg Norman, who also failed to win here. Both men are two of the most attacking players of their respective generations, but both have discovered that at Augusta all-out attack doesn’t win you a green jacket. Knowing when to leave your driver in your bag is a key strategy for this course. Right now, every aspect of McIlroy’s game is as good as any of his rivals. His driving is the best of anyone in the field. His short game is also hard to better. He has notably improved his putting this year on his way to those two big wins. But can he combine all these features for four days this week at Augusta? Ironically, in some ways the Masters is the easiest to win of the four Majors because it has by far the smallest field, usually around 90 competitors, 50-odd fewer than the other three. The numbers might be smaller but the quality of the field is of the highest ranking. Adding to the interest here is the coming together, for the first time this year, of the best players of the competing or should I say warring Tours, the USPGA and LIV Golf. So, McIlroy and friends from the US Tour will need to be mindful not just of each other but a handful of the best from LIV Golf - Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau, John Rahm among others. So it’s Scheffler, McIlroy, Schauffele, Morikawa and the likes up against those renegades from LIV Golf. Bring it on!

A near miss for Ryan Fox and another highly productive week for Lydia Ko. Our two top golfers showed their class, world class, against the world’s best in both men’s and women’s golf, respectively, over the past seven days. For Ryan Fox it was a near thing as he edged his way ever closer to his maiden win on the USPGA Tour, but alas in the end it wasn’t to be. Starting the last day in the final group at the Texas Children’s Houston Open, which in itself was a first for Ryan, his conceding 5 shots to overnight leader Min Woo Lee meant it was always going to be a tough task to overhaul the dashing Australian who continued with his hot form throughout that last round. The world’s two top players, Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy, both mounted strong challenges as they tried to run down Lee, who, like Fox, was looking for his first win on the American Tour. But the Aussie was having none of it, repelling the world’s best with a solid patient round. He was certainly in no hurry. One hole, the 8th , saw Lee and his caddie spend what seemed like an eternity pondering their options after his tee shot strayed into some bushes. All told, this final trio took 31 minutes to play this hole alone. Lee would probably argue the wait was worth it, because in the end he scrambled a par and kept his 2-shot lead. His steadiness in the end also paid off as he had to repel Scheffler who fired a final round 62, McIlroy snapping at his heels as well with a 66, not to mention Gary Woodland who got into the action big time, also with an 8 under 62 which saw him finish in second place. However, the Aussie had to bring his best out on this 8th hole after his approach from 140 meters shot through the green and finished close to 20 meters from the pin. If he didn’t get up and down he was in a three-way tie with Scheffler and Woodland. The plucky Aussie was up for it, putting from off the green rather than chipping. The ball stopped just centimeters from the hole. The tap in gave the 26-year-old his maiden PGA Tour win. Moments after his win he took a call from his sister Minjee, one of the superstars of women’s golf. Also on hand were Min Woo’s parents from Australia, making for a very emotional time after that long, tough grind out on this municipal course. Meanwhile, Ryan Fox was left to ponder what might have been. He hung tough for the front nine -2 birdies and a solitary bogey left him still in the hunt but needing to replicate what he did the day before when he shot 31 on the back nine. That possibility sadly went out the window rather quickly after he bogeyed both 10 and 11, and another bogey on 16 took him right out of the picture. He did birdie the 18th for a 1 over 71 and in a tie for 15th place for which he earned US$121,000, close to NZ$200,000, but Foxy is probably regretting that it wasn’t more than that. He now has one final chance of getting into next month’s Masters if he can win this week at the Texas Open, in San Antonio, a three-hour drive from Houston. Across the other side of the USA in Arizona, Lydia Ko came home in a tie for 6th place at the Ford Championship. It may not have been vintage Ko, but four rounds in the 60’s and finishing just 4 shots behind the winner suggests strongly, with the Women’s first Major of the year just a month away and two wins already to her name this year, Lydia might be looking forward to that tournament.

It was bit of a pity that in a week when the sports media in this country was endlessly infatuated with the ongoing struggles of Liam Lawson as he tried to improve his very poor showings in his first two Formula One outings, another talented young sportsman from this country, golfer Kazuma Kobori, achieved a major milestone on the DP World Tour but was largely ignored by the media here. Playing in the Singapore Classic, Kobori ripped apart the course with 9 birdies in his final round which saw him surge from near the back of the field into 9 th place overall, his first top ten finish in this the game’s second biggest Tour. A pity really that it received such scant attention back here. However in NZ golfing circles, this achievement in his first year on the DP World Tour will have brought much joy and was widely praised. His only blemish unfortunately for him came on his last hole where he made bogey. Statistically there was indeed much to admire in Kobori’s final round. His 25 putts were the lowest total of anyone in the field. His 8 under par 64 was also the lowest score posted by anyone in the field and just for good measure he was Number One on that last day in scrambling. Kobori’s real strength is his accuracy off the tee. After 9 tournaments this season, he stands as the 3rd most accurate driver on this Tour. Ironically in Singapore he was ranked only the 19th most accurate off the tee. He certainly isn’t a big hitter, averaging around only 265 meters or 288 yards with his driver, leaving him 150th in driving distance. However it’s abundantly clear from these stats that his ability to find the fairway off the tee is more than compensating for his shorter hitting power. As every golfer knows, it’s always easier to hit the green from the fairway than the rough. Also it should not be forgotten that his 9th place finish earned him E43,000, boosting his season earnings now to E123,000. These are figures you wouldn’t expect from a rookie in his first year on a Tour as big as this one. A few more performances like this will, I’m sure, make the media back here sit up and take notice of this exciting young Kiwi golfing talent. Also competing in Singapore was Daniel Hillier, the more highly ranked of the two Kiwis competing on the DP World Tour. Hillier finished 4 shots behind Kobori in a tie for 37 th place. Meanwhile in Florida, Ryan Fox, competing in the Valspar Championship on the USPGA Tour, had another mixed week. He started well with a 3 under par 68 which had him in 8 th place after Round 1. Things didn’t go anywhere near as well on Day 2. After a double bogey and 2 bogeys, Foxy thankfully snatched a late birdie which saw him make the cut by 1 stroke. Another 3 over 74 in Round Three saw him wallowing near the tail of the field. A return to somewhere near his best with a final 2 under 69 saw him finish in a tie for 42 nd place. Ryan’s form of late has seen him start well but unable to keep that form going for 4 rounds. That, no doubt, will be something Foxy and his team will be prioritising. This week the itinerant DP World Tour touches down in New Delhi for the Indian Open. Also the USLPGA returns this week after a 3-week break, following the Asian swing during February and early March. Hopefully Lydia Ko will be back in action and keen to continue her outstanding early season form.

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.

Kiwi golfers weren’t exactly visible on the world’s leading regular golf tours over the past week, although Steve Alker did what Steve Alker does best, as in winning on the US Champions Tour. It was Steve’s 9th win on the Champions Tour, but his first since January of last year. Playing in Tuscon, Arizona, Alker needed a 12-foot putt on the first hole of sudden death to defeat local club pro JasonCaron in the Colorgard Classic. Of the regular Kiwis, Ryan Fox wasn’t ranked high enough to get into the Arnold Palmer Invitational in Florida. Daniel Hillier was having a week off from the DP World Tour, after having played the NZ Open in Queenstown. Lydia Ko, likewise, was having the week off after her LPGA win in Singapore the week before. That really left it to two of our newbies, Kazuma Kobori Iin South Africa and Fiona Xu in China on the LPGA Tour to carry the Kiwi flag. Unfortunately, both of them missed the cut which meant they too had the weekend off, which was no doubt welcomed by Kobori as he’s played an awful lot of golf in recent weeks without a break. However back here at home, the NZPGA Championship was held at the Bridge Pa course on the outskirts of Hastings and here Kiwi colours did indeed fly high. Taking home this title and a cheque for around $35,000 dollars was Tyler Hodge, a 30-year-old New Zealander trying his hand for the second time at a professional career. A self-described journeyman, Hodge turned pro in 2017, but after four tough years with little to show for his efforts, he quit the pro ranks. A couple of years later, in 2023, he gave it a second shot and those tough times have paid off, learning the hard way, what no coach can teach you, how to grind it out on the mean, unforgiving fairways of tournament golf. An interesting mixture of prominent names from our pro ranks showed up at Bridge Pa. Tim Wilkinson, trying to get his playing card back for the USPGA Tour, turned up and put together four good rounds, the last three all under 70 to claim 4th place. Josh Geary and Nick Voke, recent winners on the Australian Tour were there too. Adding to the local success at Bridge Pa was the sight of another Kiwi, Kerry Mountcastle, finishing second to Tyler Hodge, making for a 1, 2 Kiwi quinella. Meanwhile in Hong Kong at the latest stop on the LIV golf circuit, Danny Lee came home in 20th spot and Ben Campbell finished in a tie for 35 th place with Brooks Koepka. All eyes this coming week will be on the Players Championship in Ponte Vedra, Florida, where virtually all of the world’s top 100 will play in an event now recognised, albeit unofficially, as the men’s 5 th Major.

New Zealand Open week is traditionally the acme of the golfing year in this country. Expectation a New Zealander would triumph this year was running much higher than normal, given the depth and calibre, as well as the current hot form of many of our leading golfers, two of whom, Josh Geary and Nick Voke, were winners of the two previous tournaments on the Australasian Tour. Also in Queenstown was the in-form Daniel Hiller, fresh off a runner-up finish in the Middle East. Steve Alker, arguably the best senior golfer in the world over the past 2-3 years, pitched up as well. Danny Lee, surprise surprise, made his first appearance at the NZ Open for over a decade. So the chances of a Kiwi winner for the first time in 8 years seemed ever so bright. Alas it wasn’t to be. Our best and brightest, most of whom it should be said did display some excellent golf, in each case didn’t play quite well enough. One or two low rounds out of 4 didn’t cut it here, where the winning score was 23 under par for the 72 holes. Relatively little-known Australian golfers have made a habit for some years now of coming over here and scooping up our biggest annual golf prize. And so it was again this year. This time it was Ryan Peake, a 31-year-old West Australian ex-prison mate who spent 5 years in jail for assault while a member of the bikie gang, the Rebels. Peake hadn’t played in NZ before because of his jailed history which had prevented him, until a week or two back, from getting visa clearance to travel to NZ. His lack of familiarity with the fairways of the two courses at the Millbrook resort clearly counted for little in the end. He played 36 holes on the day before the tournament started, then ripped out four sub-par rounds in the 60’s to win by one stroke. It was an especially nerve-wracking final hole for Peake, who had left his tee shot on this par 3 finishing hole way right off the green and in some light rough. His normally reliable short game momentarily deserted him and he was left with a three-metre putt he had to make to avoid a 4-way play-off. His nerve held and the sheer joy mixed, one imagines, with a myriad number of emotional memories, good and bad, came charging out of the West Australian. As he said afterwards, “The story is what it is, I’m here just to play golf” and he’ll be playing an awful lot more in years to come, one imagines, and in some pretty exalted company. For starters he’ll play in this year’s Open Championship which comes with winning the NZ Open. He now sits third on the Australasian Order of Merit and his chances of finishing in the top 3 as the season winds down are fairly high which, if he does, will see him gain full exemption to the DP World Tour for next year. Unfortunately, none of the much-vaunted Kiwis in the field could finish in the top 10. Best effort came from Daniel Hillier who finished in a tie for 12th spot at 17-under, 6 shots behind Peake. At exactly the same time as Peake was peaking in Queenstown, Lydia Ko on the lush fairways of the Sentosa Golf Club in Singapore was clocking up her 23rd victory on the USLPGA Tour. Even with 22 wins under her belt prior to this one, her win here appeared very special, judging by her comments in the victory ceremony. It was her first victory in 11 attempts to win this tournament here in Singapore. For all her successes worldwide, very few of them have come in Asia. Her win here in Singapore was also the 10th country where she has recorded a professional victory - remarkable record really. She won by 4 strokes in the end. A string of three birdies on the front nine gave her a sizeable leadover the rest of the field from that point - the result was really never in much doubt. One of the highlights of her round was a 61-foot birdie putt on the par 3 15 th . It was a two-tiered downhill putt with a double break on the lower tier. Lydia started the long walk to the hole after she had putted. Halfway to the hole she stopped in astonishment as the ball snaked its way into the hole. Her face was one of amazement, then she just burst into laughter. The eccentricities of golf. Meanwhile in Durban, Kazuma Kobori again defied his status as a rookie on the world’s second biggest golf tour the DP World Tour. At the Durban Country Golf Club, he finished in a tie for 25th place in the South African Open, with a final round 5-under par 67, lifting his season earnings to E79,000, over NZ$130,000 and it’s only the first week of March. Not so cheery about his latest performance is Ryan Fox who had the misfortune to miss the cut by one stroke in Florida on the latest stop of the USPGA Tour. That’s two missed cuts in a row for Ryan. That’s also, I guess, part of the eccentricities of golf.

The lot of young professional golfers, especially from these parts these days, as they endeavour to secure a spot on any of the world‘s leading tours, usually entails an enormous amount of travel. Scanning the widely various global locations our leading players were in last week underlies the itinerant nature of this sport. We had Kazuma Kobori, our newest addition to the men’s professional ranks, playing in the Kenya Open in Nairobi; Ryan Fox was in Mexico, the latest stop on the USPGA Tour; Nic Voke was making a very successful fist of things winning the latest tournament on the Australasian Tour; Momoka Kobori, Kazuma’s older sister, is playing on the European Ladies Tour; Lydia Ko and Fiona Xu, the NZ pair competing on the USLPGA tour which is currently playing a series of its events in Asia; Daniel Hillier, like Kobori, a regular now on the DP World Tour, has spent the last 3 weeks competing in the Middle East but is now in Queenstown playing the NZ Open before returning to the DP World Tour which heads to South Africa for the next couple of weeks then off to Singapore Tour. I guess if you’re a member of this Tour, like Kobori and Hillier, and even if you’re not making a lot of money, you are certainly clocking up a lot of air miles. None of these players, incidentally, have any of their travel paid. Air fares, accommodation and any other costs incurred getting yourself and your clubs from one tournament to the next are your costs. There are no free lunches in the world of professional golf. Sure, your potential earnings can be enormous, but it is also a costly business which is why there is such a high turnover rate. If your game isn’t up to scratch, you will run out of money quickly. Certainly many promising youngsters initially attract sponsorship in their rookie years, but if your game and standing is going backwards, your days as a touring pro are usually numbered. There has of course been one glaring exception to the above scenario - who else but Tiger Woods. So sensational was his game, even while he was ateenager yet still an amateur, that Nike offered him a US$1million contract the day he turned pro. So even before he had hit his first ball as a pro, he was a golfing millionaire. Meanwhile back in the real world, the tough grind of life as a touring pro continued for our group of leading Kiwi pros. Not too many of them were in action last week. Ryan Fox’s Mexican sojourn only lasted two rounds, missing the cut by 1 stroke. Better news from darkest Africa where Kazuma Kobori turned in another excellent display, shooting a final round of 66, 5 under par, to finish in a tie for 31 st place at the Kenyan Open which lifted his earnings so far this season on the DP World Tour to E65,000, close to NZ$100,000. The other really encouraging news around Kobori’s game in Nairobi was his driving and putting. According to the official stats from the Kenyan Open, Kazuma was Number One in driving accuracy and 4 th in putting, two very significant statistics which, if he can maintain those sorts of figures, augurs very well for his future this year. Kobori isn’t the only feel-good story coming out of NZ golf over the past week. Across the ditch, Kiwi golfer, Nick Voke, whose career to date epitomises the very essence of that nomadic itinerant golfing model referred to above. Well on Sunday he won the Webex Players Series Sydney at the Castle Hill golf club in NSW. Nick, only 30 years of age, has already played on PGA Tours in China, America, Asia and Australasia and picked up A$45,000 for his win in Sydney - and boy, was he in scintillating form, shooting rounds of 66, 64, 67 and 69 to win from Aussie’s Jake McLeod by 1 stroke. If Nick can carry his Australian form into the NZ Open at Millbrook this week, he will be one to watch. Nick’s win in Sydney means Kiwi golfers have now gone back-to-back winners on the Australasian circuit with Josh Geary winning on the same Tour last week in Victoria. So, keep an eye on Voke and Geary this week in the Deep South.

Kiwi golfers were not terribly visible over the past week. Ryan Fox didn’t qualify for the rich Genesis Invitational, the latest signature event on the US Tour. And both the US LPGA Tour and the DP World Tour had weeks off. So, in a curious irony NZ’s two LIV Golf ‘defectors’, Danny Lee and Ben Campbell, held centre stage as they competed in the latest LIV event staged at the Grange Golf Club in Adelaide. For what I’m sure was the first time on our television screens here, we had the sight of these two rivals Tours going head-to-head, competing for viewers. The LIV event went out live on TVNZ+ and the Genesis on Sky TV. One thing was for sure - the presentation of the two events was profoundly different. You could be forgiven for thinking the LIV event was part of some nearby rock concert. It seemed every hole they cut to you could hear music coming at you, if not blaringly loud, at least prominently audible. I can’t say it especially disturbed or upset me. Clearly LIV wants spectators to enjoy themselves. Their motto seems to be, the more noise, the better, and interestingly the players seemed cool with it as well. The crowds were large. Their front person kept reminding us, with almost nauseating frequency, that over 100,000 fans had showed up over the three days. The players decked out in shorts only added to the ‘party’ atmosphere. In many ways it was LIV Golf’s answer to the recent Phoenix Open played in Arizona a couple of weeks back. Like the Phoenix Open, this event in Adelaide oozed with booze. The huge turnout in Adelaide can, in part, be put down to the undeniable reality that Aussie golf fans have been starved of the presence of big names for their headline tournaments for years. The Australian Open, for decades going back to the ‘60s and ‘70s, was considered the unofficial 5 th Major, such was the calibre of the field this event attracted. Regular annual visitors included the likes of Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Gary Player. Those days are now just a nostalgic memory. So it is not surprising to see Aussie golf fans in their droves from all round the country heading to Adelaide to catch the likes of John Rahm, Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau, plus a host of Australia’s best headed by Cam Smith and Mark Leishman. But ah, what about the golf I hear you say. Well I’m afraid, here the USPGA Tour wins hands down. With all due respect to the hype and hoopla that came with the LIV coverage, the leaderboard on the final day was dominated by the likes of Joaquin Niemann, Abraham Ancer, Calos Ortiz and David Puig who finished in that order from 1st to 5h . Fine golfers all of them, but household names, I don’t think so. John Rahm and Brooks Koepka finished inside the top to give the final leaderboard a tinge of starpower. Mind you there wouldn’t be too many complaints from the two Kiwis in the field. Ben Campbell finished in a tie for 23 rd place and took home US$190,000 and Danny Lee US$135,000 for finishing 37 th in a field of 54. Meanwhile over on Sky TV, the final two days of the Genesis produced plenty of superb golf as the likes of Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy tried to run down golf’s bright new star, Ludvig Aberg, the 25-year-old Swede who fired a brilliant 6 under par 66 on the last day to head off Scheffler (who also shot 66) by 3 shots. Rory’s putter unfortunately stayed cold all day and he finished just outside the top 10. Yes, by comparison, the Genesis was free of hype and hoopla and at times their presenters are just a little too deferential towards sponsors and players. But in the end they didn’t need rock stars playing in the background. Instead, they allowed their own true rock stars of golf ie Scheffler, McIlroy and company to duel it out on the fairways and greens of Torrey Pines. PGA 1 LIV Golf 0.

A flurry of New Zealand golfers were visible on tours around the world over the past week, including the rare sight of two Kiwi women competing in the USLPGA’s latest event. Ryan Fox was in Scotsdale, Arizona, competing in that most remarkable if not the most unique of tournaments, the Waste Management Phoenix Open. And two Kiwis were hard at work in the Middle East at the Qatar Masters and in the most bizarre event of the year, a handful of Kiwi golfers took part in the Victoria Open at Barwon Heads, 20-odd kilometres from Geelong in rural Victoria. I say bizarre because the final day was played in winds, the like of which none of the players in the field had ever encountered before. The winds were so strong that a number of players, including the leaders, were seen imploring officials to suspend play mid-round. Among the complainants was the man who eventually won the tournament, 40-year-old Kiwi golfer Josh Geary, whose patience finally wore thin on the 8th green when he had a two-and-a-half-foot putt for par from a dead flat lie. He barely touched the ball, which then wriggled slowly to the hole which it missed, then it gathered speed and rolled downwind for another 15 feet at least. Many other golfers were having similar experiences. Eventually officials came out to inspect the worst affected holes which included the 8th , After much discussion with the players, the officials said play must continue. Their thinking, I guess, was formed around the fact that many in the field had already completed their rounds and had played their full 18 holes in windy conditions. However, as we know, usually the wind reaches its peak in mid to late afternoon, which was the case here. I can’t recall ever seeing balls move so freely from still positions on putting greens as they were here. Many decades ago (back in the 1980’s) at one of NZ’s top professional events, the Garden City Classic, being played at the Russley course in Christchurch, I recall play was suspended as a strong norwesterly wind blew in from the Southern Alps. The balls that day were moving for sure but nowhere as much as they were on Sunday at this event in Victoria. When balls are blowing 10-20 feet past the hole from short 2- and 3-foot putts, the course quite simply is no longer playing fairly and play should be suspended. It was making the Victorian Open look like a putt putt event. Fortunately for Josh Geary, he had, by the time he reached the 8 th hole, built up a 6-shot lead over the field, so he had a bit of a cushion and he needed it. On the back nine he had a run of 4 straight bogeys. Fortunately for him his nearest rivals were going backwards as well and in the end the Kiwi got home with a 4-shot winning margin. It was a memorable day, that’s for sure, for Josh. Apart from the windy memories he’ll take with him forever, it was also his first win on Australian soil for 12 years. Asked for his reaction when he came off the final green, he said, “Carnage. I’ve never seen anything like that on a golf course”. This from an 18-year veteran professional who has played on all of the world’s major golf tours over the past two decades. He was, as the Aussie TV commentators admitted, the best player by far over the four days. Prior to the final round, Geary hadn’t recorded a bogey. He’d had three rounds in the mid-sixties. On Sunday he shot 78 and still won by 4 shots. Go figure. Incidentally, because of the wind and the myriad problems it presented, the leaders took the best part of seven hours to complete that final round. Meanwhile, on the world’s leading women’s Tour, the USLPGA, Lydia Ko wasn’t the only golfer flying the Kiwi flag. There alongside her in the field was 20-year-old Fiona Xu from the Titirangi Club in Auckland. Fiona had earned her playing card for the LPGA Tour at the end of last year. And not to be out done by her illustrious compatriot, Fiona made a good fist of things. Here up against the world’s best, she finished in a tie for 50 th place with Lydia, who, it must be said, probably had a tournament she would rather forget. Something was horribly wrong with Lydia’s game on the first day, dropping 6 shots in her first 6 holes which included 2 double bogeys. Although she recovered over the rest of the round, she still finished 3 over par and never really featured in the tournament over the final three rounds. Elsewhere Ryan Fox made a good start at the Phoenix Open and had pulled himself up to inside the top 25 after two rounds, only to fade over the weekend and finish in a tie for 69rd place. It was, however, his first start on the US Tour and against a backdrop of long-distance travel, having played a couple of events in the Middle East just prior to teeing it up in Arizona. It looks like a bit of jet lag might have kicked in over the last 2 rounds. And back in the Middle East, Daniel Hillier continued his good consistent form on the DP World Tour with a 25th place at the Qatar Masters. He sits in 3rd place in the Race To Dubai, the rich end-of-season Championship final. Unfortunately Kazuma Kobori, our rookie pro on this Tour, missed the cut by 1 shot.

Yes, let’s be very clear, Rory McIlroy won the 2025 Pebble Beach Pro-Am Championship despite what should have been a tournament-wrecking horror stretch on the back 9 on Day 2. Here he bogeyed 4 holes in the space of 6 holes. But Rory has always loved defying the odds and he did it in spectacular fashion, playing some of the very best golf of his career at one of America’s most iconic courses. This US$20million signature event brought together for the first time in 2025 most of the world’s top 50 golfers. Normally a bogey run of the magnitude McIlroy suffered would have killed off any chance of winning. Fortunately for the Irishman the sheer calibre of his golf on the other 66 holes enabled him to defy traditional thinking which claims you can’t win a golf tournament in Round 1 or 2 but you can lose it, especially when your game falls apart as dramatically as it did for McIlroy at Pebble Beach. This win was his 27th on the USPGA Tour and having followed his career closely, I‘m not sure I can recall too many occasions when he has played any better golf than he did over those last two days. He shot 65 on Saturday in appalling conditions and 66 on the last day. Watching those last two rounds of McIlroy’s was to watch a magician at work. Off the tee he was impeccable and super long, the best part of 15-20 yards ahead of his opponents on most holes. His short game was second to none. Time and time again his deft touch around the greens saw him get up and down to save par, often from the lush thick rough that rings the tight small greens at Pebble Beach. The hole in one on Day 1 which he pulled off on the par 3 seventh which measured just a tad over 100 yards underlined the deadly precision of his short game. He flew his wedge from the cliff top tee straight down into the hole. Also, his putting was very solid throughout the 4 rounds. He may not have won a Major for ten years, but I’m prepared to bet he will win one this year if he can replicate his Pebble Beach form. Scottie Scheffler remains, quite rightly, indisputably the Number 1 golfer in the world. He played at Pebble Beach, yet finished 6 shots behind McIlroy, another pointer to the peerless quality of McIlroy’s golf. Sure, it was Scheffler’s first start in 2025, but he was still in very good form, shooting 3 rounds in the 60’s and a 2 under par 70 in the other. But what do they say Rory? “One swallow does not a summer make”. However, making some hay while the sun was shining in the Middle East were Daniel Hillier and rookie pro Kazuma Kobori who continues to make a good fist of things in this first full year as a playing pro. Both ironically finished in a share of 24 th place, each pocketing E23,000 or approximately NZ$43,000. Lydia Ko too had yet another useful pay day when she finished in a tie for 6 th place at the Tournament of Champions at Lake Nona in Florida, Lydia’s home course where she has performed well over the years. She looked likely to have another top 3 finish this year after shooting rounds of 67 and 65 on Days 2 and 3. However a wayward front nine which included 3 bogeys took her out of contention on the last day, even though she went on a bit of a birdie run after that, playing the last 12 holes in 5 under and picking up a cheque for US$120,000, rounding out a very productive week for our leading golfers.

Three Kiwis lined up for the latest DP World Tour event, the Ras Al Khaimah Classic in Qatar. Now if you know your golf, the name of this tournament should ring a bell for you. Yes, this was the event three years ago that Ryan Fox won, his second DP World Tour win, but his first over the traditional 72-hole stroke play format. So Foxy was back in the desert looking to repeat his February 2023 win. Also playing last week were fellow Kiwis Daniel Hillier and Kazuma Kobori. Unfortunately, the latter two missed the cut. Hillier, I guess, could be forgiven if his head was still a little in the clouds after that epic duel he had last week over the last round of the US$9million Desert Classic in Dubai where he duelled with Tyrell Hatton right down to the wire, eventually finishing runner-up. Kazuma, in his rookie year on this Tour, might well have made the cut but for two double bogeys on the back nine on Day One. That left Ryan Fox as the only one of the three to make the cut and he made it, with just a shot to spare. Two good solid rounds, however, over the weekend, in particular on Sunday, saw him move up from around 60 th place to a final share of 27 th place. Sure, he would have loved to have repeated his showing here from three years ago, but this outing, coupled with his 10 th place at last week’s rich Hero Desert Classic in neighbouring Dubai, represents a very solid start to his playing schedule for 2025. He opened up in Qatar with an even par round of 72, then went under par for his final three rounds, including a 4 under 68 on the final day. So, of the eight rounds Foxy played over the two tournaments up there in the Middle East, six of those eight were under par and the other two were even par 72’s. That will give the Kiwi plenty of confidence as he heads now to America to start his season on the rich but tough USPGA Tour. His game will also benefit greatly this year, I’m hoping, from having to undertake far less travel. Ryan and his wife have established a residential base in the USA for this year, meaning he can spend much more time with his family and much less time sitting in aeroplanes. Meanwhile on the PGA Tour, Harris English picked up his 5 th career win, taking out the Farmers Insurance at the famous Torrey Pines course in San Diego. A talking point that has emerged again from this Tour is the pace of play. English and his two playing partners in the final group took three hours to play the front nine on the final day. That equates to a six-hour round to play 18 holes. That’s just crazy. Dottie Pepper, the well-respected roving television commentator, said on air at Torrey Pines, “This has just got to change. What is needed is respect (from players, I’m presuming) for fellow players, fans, television viewers, for everybody”, to which fellow commentator, Frank Nobilo, totally agreed. Personally, I think one of the big problems here is ‘caddy chat’, as I call it. Do a player and a caddie really need three to four minutes to discuss how to play their next shot? No I say, emphatically no. Might be time to start putting the clock on these chats. Anyway, to finish on a more positive note, this week’s upcoming event, the famous Pebble Beach Pro Am, includes in the field World Number One, Scottie Sheffler, and Rory McIlroy, who, I’m pleased to say, are two of the quickest players on tour.

Hi there golf fans and welcome to our first column for 2025. If the last week is anything to go by, 2025 promises to be a bumper year for Kiwi golf. Our two leading male golfers nearly pulled off a truly remarkable double act. Midway through the final round of the Hero Desert Classic in Dubai, Daniel Hillier was in a two-way tie for first place and Ryan Fox was in a tie for second place. Was this going to be a 1, 2 Kiwi finish in this US$9million tournament? One of the richest golf events anywhere in the world in 2025. Alas it wasn’t quite to be. As the sun went down in the desert, Daniel Hillier finished second to Tyrell Hatton and Ryan Fox finished in a tie for 10th place, a result he was very pleased with. As he pointed out, he hadn’t played in a tournament for a couple of months. He also had medical matters around his hip that needed attending to. All he was hoping for, in this his first outing of the year, was a few good swings from each round to get him back into some sort of form for another tough year. However, the real story here was Daniel Hillier, who came so close to claiming that first prize and the winner’s cheque of US$1.5million. Daniel led for much of, in fact most of, the last three rounds, following his brilliant 7 under 65 on Day 2 which shot him to the top of the leaderboard at the halfway stage. He hung onto that lead during the third round. The final round became a bit of a shootout between Tyrell Hatton and Hillier. In the end Hatton bettered Hillier by a couple of shots, shooting a 3 under 69 to Daniel’s 1 under par 71. The Kiwi was let down by a couple of poor greenside chips from admittedly thick rough, but his inability to get up and down from little more than 5-6 meters proved costly. However, Daniel walked away with US$900,000. Quite apart from that being the biggest pay cheque of his professional career, a number of other benefits will flow from that runner-up performance. His world ranking will take a jump forward, and he also now sits in second place on the Race to Dubai points table. This is the rich end-of-year DP World Tour finale in Dubai worth millions to the winner. Maybe, above all of the rest, is the enormous confidence he will take from this showing. With a purse of US$9million it attracted big names from all round the world, even a handful of LIV golfers were eligible to play and of course one of them, Tyrell Hatton, won the event. Not so lucky was fellow LIV golfer John Rahm who missed the cut.  Also in the field was Rory McIlroy, multiple winner of the this event, Tommy Fleetwood and Patrick Reed. For Daniel Hillier to finish second in a field of this quality means he can now foot it with the best in the world. However golf can be a very fickle game.

Well the golfing year is all but done. Only the one event of interest to us last weekend, the Grant Thornton Invitational played in Naples, Florida. The defending champions in this combined men’s and women’s team event were Lydia Ko and Jason Day. The ANZAC duo put up a good fight and finished in a respectable tie for 6th place this year, 6 shots behind the winners, Patti Tavatanakit from Thailand and Jake Knapp, a young American pro. It wasn’t too bad a pay day for Ko and Day who shared US$200,000 for their short stay in Florida. With the year done, it’s probably appropriate to look back over the last 12 months and do a bit of a roll call on our leading golf talents. So who has been the NZ Golfer of the Year? Well, there can’t be much argument here. Clearly Lydia Ko was our most outstanding golfer in 2024. When you win a gold medal at the Olympics and follow that up with a win in the Open Championship a week or two later, you far and away take the crown for this country’s leading golfer. Lydia for all of her success in 2024 nonetheless didn’t get the much coveted USLPGA Player of the Year.  That title quite rightly went to Nellie Korda for her 7 wins in 2024, including a run of 5 straight consecutive wins mid-year, one of which was a Major title, the Chevron Championship.  But just to show us all that she’s not a automaton, she then promptly missed the cut in the year’s next two Major championships. All up Lydia won 3 times on the USLPGA Tour and in total had 7 top tens, along of course with that Olympic Gold medal at the Paris Olympics. And her pay packet for the year from prizemoney winnings alone - just under US$3 million. Next, at Number 2 on our Kiwi golf rankings for 2024, has to be Ryan Fox.  This wasn’t a vintage year for Foxy who ends the year with his world ranking sitting at 83, a big drop from those heady days a couple of years back when he climbed inside the world’s top 30. However, 2024 was a transitional and a tough year for Ryan.  His recent successes in Europe saw him gain a playing card to the USPGA Tour in 2024. It meant having to effectively shift house from Europe to the USA for his wife and baby daughter and him, all the while on the road most weeks playing on a new Tour, the toughest in the world. While he didn’t enjoy the type of success he’d reaped in Europe, his tough grinding skills saw him make enough to keep his playing card for 2025 in the USA and that, I suspect, was his top priority in 2024. To hang onto his playing card on tours as demanding as the USPGA Tour, with its extraordinary depth of playing talent, was a major personal achievement for Foxy. He will, I’m sure, be much more competitive in the US in 2025, now that he’s familiar with most of the courses he’ll play on. Also hampering his game in 2024 has been a niggling hip injury which hopefully he will have rectified by the time his 2025 season starts after the Christmas/New Year break. Rounding out my top 3 Kiwi golfers for 2024 will be a name that will surprise some, Ben Campbell, who doesn’t play on either of the world’s 2 top tours, the USPGA or the DP World Tour.  Yet Ben, this year, pocketed the best part of NZ$2.5 million playing on the rejuvenated Asian Tour, where for the second year in a row he registered a win - this year the Indonesian Masters and he came very close to successfully defending his Hong Kong Open which he won in 2023. This year he missed out on a sudden death playoff in Hong Kong by 1 shot. One of the features of his game this year has been his consistency with a host of top 10 finishes. The Asian Tour has forged a close relationship with LIV Golf. This makes sense to some degree for both tours. LIV golfers who play in Asian Tour events are eligible for official world golf ranking points, which in turn raises the credibility and appeal of events on this tour. So well done to Ben Campbell. His series of high finishes this year on this Asian Tour has seen his world ranking jump from 244 at year’s beginning to a now career high of 139. He has well and truly overtaken Daniel Hillier who wasn’t able to repeat his 2023 form this year and now ranks outside of the top 200. Others who deserve mention in passing in 2024 include Kazuma Kobori whose brilliant form on the Australian PGA Tour at the start of his professional tour a year ago has seen him earn his full playing card for 2025 on the DP World Tour. Sam Jones, another rookie who turned pro a year ago and promptly secured his DP World Tour card for 2024 via the Qualifying School, had a tough first up year as a touring pro. Despite a few healthy pay cheques he couldn’t quite finish inside the top 115 on this Tour and had to go back to Q-School where he came up short and so lost his full playing card for 2025. However, he showed me he has enough strength in his game to suggest he’ll be back on the big tours sooner rather than later. That’s it from me for 2024.  I’ll be back when the big tours kick off in mid-January. In the meantime, I hope you all have an enjoyable Christmas and New Year and find time to get in plenty of good golf.

Ben Campbell is a name that should, but probably doesn’t, resonate widely among the Kiwi golfing fraternity. Ben has become something of the invisible man of NZ golf. Last weekend, for example, for the second time in three weeks, he has pocketed a large chunk of prize money from a rich Asian tournament. His 4th place at the International Series event in Saudi Arabia saw him take home US$235,000 or close to NZ$500,000. These two healthy pay cheques have lifted Ben’s winnings on the Asian PGA Tour this calendar year to US$1,110,00 which equates to around NZ$2.5 million. Only Ryan Fox, out of our leading male golfers, can match Campbell’s effort this year. His 4th place in Saudi Arabia and his 2nd place in the Hong Kong Open a couple of weeks back are among the very best individual performances by a Kiwi golfer this year, outside of Lydia Ko’s extraordinary late end-of-season run. Ben’s career exists in something of a golfing vacuum. As he doesn’t play on either of the world’s two leading tours, the USPGA or the DP World Tour, news of his golfing exploits barely gets a mention back here. His 4 th place last weekend in Saudi Arabia was in a tournament on the Asian Tour that boasted a field of the highest quality. A host of Major Championship winners such as Cameron Smith, Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed, Sergio Garcia, Louis Oosthuizen and Charl Schwartzel were in the field. That is some field, let me tell you. Yet unless I missed something, none of the big media outlets such as TV1, TV3, Radio New Zealand or even the usually reliable NZ Herald carried news of Campbell’s performance. Sure, it could be pointed out that the list above of Major Championship winners were for the most part from LIV Golf. They play in Asian Tour events because it then makes them eligible for World Ranking points. The Asian Tour permits LIV Golfers to play in Asian Tour events because it brings mutual benefits to both tours, a trend incidentally which is gradually, if ever so slowly, spreading to the DP World Tour as well. It appears now only the USPGA Tour, the world’s leading tour, refuses to allow LIV Golfers to play in regular weekly USPGA Tour events. Back to Campbell’s showing in Saudi Arabia. He missed getting into a sudden death play-off by just a single shot, finishing at 20 under after two rounds of 64 on both Saturday and Sunday. Brilliant golf. However, his latest showing has lifted his world ranking to 139 and now leaves him clearly as New Zealand’s second-ranked male player behind Ryan Fox, currently ranked at number 83 in the world. Campbell began the year ranked 239, so his rapid climb in 2024 is further proof of what an outstanding year he has had. Ben was also part of an unusual Kiwi triumvirate at this event in the desert which included Nick Voke and Danny Lee. Lee missed the cut, but Nick Voke also enjoyed a reasonably good week, finishing at 9 under in a tie for 50th place, still taking home close to NZ$50,000 in prize money. Nick has enjoyed a good year on this tour, winning all up US$150,000 over the year.

No-one should have an issue with Golf Australia’s willingness to embrace diversity in their sport. Last week’s Australian Open carried A$6.8 million dollars in prizemoney, equally split between the Men’s Open Championship and the Women’s Championship which ran concurrently on the same two courses and yes, equality was undoubtedly the real winner. The event was played on two of Australia’s finest courses, Kingston Heath and the Victorian Golf Club. However, watching the event on television back here, I felt a little cheated. In trying to give equal live and simultaneous coverage to these two high status events proved inevitably counterproductive as each event, in a sense, was cutting the throat of the other. While you were watching live coverage of the men’s event you were missing live coverage of the women’s event and vice versa. However, I would argue televising each event live and for all 4 rounds is still a better option for television viewers. Have the Men’s one week and the Women’s the next. Who is disadvantaged under that system? Neither I would argue. Could you imagine, for example, the Bledisloe Cup being shown live alongside a women’s rugby test between Australia and New Zealand. Five minutes of the men’s test and then we whip over to women’s test for the next 5 minutes. It would quickly be seen as television lunacy at its best but that essentially is what we got last weekend with the live coverage of these two Australian Opens. Both events had a host of big names from around the world, underlined by a Korean woman taking out the Women’s title and an American won the Men’s. In their defence of their dual coverage approach, Golf Australia argued not very convincingly they had to juggle the interests of many different stakeholder wishes. The interests of the poor old television viewers here and across the world didn’t seem to rate terribly highly. So to the golf. There were a handful of Kiwis competing in both events. The best of the Kiwis was the little-known pro from these shores, Hanee Song, who finished 10th in the Women’s championship and earned around A$30,000 for her troubles. Hanee, who plays on the Ladies European Tour, has had her best ever fortnight as a pro finishing second the week prior to the Australian Open in the NSW PGA. These two top 10 finishes back-to-back have seen her world ranking improve by 93 places. She now sits at 475 on the women’s world ranking list. Finishing in the top 10 at the Australian Open suggests she is more than capable of continuing this rapid ranking rise. For the Kiwi men, this event offered valuable ranking points for those playing on the DP World Tour - Daniel Hillier, Kazuma Kobori and Sam Jones. Unfortunately Sam didn’t make the cut, but Hillier and Kobori made a good fist of things over the weekend. Kazuma Kobori, after a brilliant opening round of 65, hung in there to record rounds of 74, 72 and 72 for a share of 26th place and Hillier, who began the last day just inside the top ten, faded with a round of 75 to see him slip to 35th place overall. Kobori in his first year as a pro now stands in 26th place on the DP rankings, half a dozen places ahead of Daniel Hillier.

The curtain continues to come down on the golfing year but not before the completion of the various rich Tour Championships Finals. This week it was the turn of the game’s leading female exponents to divvy up no less than US$11 million (NZ$17million) in prizemoney in Naples, Florida. At last it seems as if Corporate America is finally, albeit slowly, acknowledging the worth and merit of women’s golf. It’s been nothing short of a scandal in recent times to watch the ever-galloping increase in prizemoney for men’s tournaments, sure, fuelled out of necessity to some extent by the advent of LIV Golf and its huge purses via Saudi Arabi’s dubious petrodollars. It’s hardly surprising the Saudis, given the harsh restrictions they impose on their own female citizens, have shown little interest in replicating their men’s LIV Golf template on women’s golf. Most weeks, while women on the USLPGA Tour play for a total purse of US$2million, their male counterparts in some other part of the US are often playing for ten times that amount. So the CME Globe’s Women’s Tour Finale, with its total US$11million purse and US$4million of that going to the winner, was a most welcome addition to the golfing calendar. As expected, Lydia Ko, in the form of her life in recent months, was right in there chasing down that huge first prize. In the end, despite a brilliant final round of 63 (9pars and 9 birdies), Lydia had to settle for third place and a cheque for US$500,000 (NZ$850,000). How she must be kicking herself for a series of putting woes during her second round which saw her take 34 putts. She admitted after this round she failed to come to terms with the fact that the greens were running much quicker on Day Two than they were on Day One. Her opening round of 67 included just 26 putts, her second round of 74 required 34 putts. However she staged an amazing recovery over the final two rounds, posting a 67 on Day Three and then that 9 under 63 to finish with. Incidentally, across the four rounds, Lydia missed only one fairway, hitting 55 out of 56 fairways, an almost unbelievable statistic in either men’s or women’s golf. The big prize and that 4 million cheque went to the 24-year-old Thai golfer, Jeeno Thitikul, who finished eagle, birdie to edge out the American, Angel Yin. The two playing together on the final day had a seesaw battle all day. In the end it came down to the final hole. The two were tied at 21 under as they made their way up the last hole. Thitikul put her second shot within 5 feet of the hole while Yin’s second came to rest also on the green but 25 feet from the hole. She missed her long birdie putt. Thitikul, with 4million dollars riding on one 5-foot putt, made hers to record her fourth victory on the LPGA Tour. Elsewhere, closer to home, there were good finishes by three of our younger brigade of pro golfers - Nike Voke, Kazuma Kabori and Kerry Mountcastle - all of whom finished inside the top 25 of the Australia PGA Championship at the Royal Queensland layout. Voke was the best of the Kiwis with a final round of 65, 6 under par, which elevated him in to a share of 8th place. Kabori got off to a great start with birdies on 3 of the first 5 holes. Unfortunately for the young Kiwi he dropped shots 10, 13 and 14 but showing his great promise, two late birdies saw him sign for 2 under 69 and a share of 15th place and a cheque for AUS$16,000. Mountcastle finished in a tie for 24 th place. Due to some adverse weather, the tournament was reduced to 54 holes. The three Kiwis now head to Victoria for the Australian Open to be played across two courses - Kingston Heath and the Victoria Golf Club starting Thursday. Meanwhile in Hong Kong, Kiwi golfer Ben Campbell finished second at the Hong Kong Open which forms part of the Asian PGA Tour. Campbell, the defending champion, put up a brave showing as he tried to defend his title. He opened with a 63 and followed that up with a 65 on the second day to lead the tournament at the halfway stage. But on Day Three he and the rest of the field were humbled by a remarkable display of red-hot golf by 2019 Masters Champion, Patrick Reed, who shot a 59 - 11 birdies and 7 pars. He joins that very rare club of golfers who have shot under 60 in a professional 72-hole tournament. Reed went on to record a three-shot victory on the last day, but Ben Campbell stormed home over the last 9 holes, recording 5 birdies in the process to finish alone in second place, worth just over NZ$400,000.

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.

Golf, so we are often reminded, is a truly global sport and yes, in terms of the money it generates and then disperses in the form of big prize money, it’s up there with tennis, football, basketball, baseball and a few other big-time sports. Yet here’s the odd thing, geographically, it’s far from a truly global sport. It’s huge in North America and throughout much but not all of Western Europe. In Africa it barely registers on any scale apart really from South Africa. The same can be said for South America and Central America. It’s not to say golf is not played on these two continents, it is, but huge multi-million-dollar tournaments which pop up every week in the USA and on the European-based DP World Tour are non-existent in Africa, South and Central America and the old Eastern European block of countries. So, without labouring the point, professional golf on the large scale is synonymous with wealthy first world countries.    There is one glaring exception to this rule and that’s Asia, where golf rules supreme in countries rich and poor. Traditionally however, for many decades, golf as in big moneyed professional tournaments only had a foothold in one Asian country and that was Japan. There, golf for a long time has ranked up there in terms of popularity, not far behind the likes of football and sumo wrestling. The Japanese Tour for years ranked as the world’s Number Two Tour, behind only the USPGA Tour. It offered huge prize money, not as huge but not far behind the money of the USPGA Tour. Many New Zealand pros, male and female, have done really nicely financially from playing the Japanese Tours. These days, while the big men’s tours, especially the USPGA Tour, are locked in a bitter battle with new comer LIV Golf, which has seen many big names defect from PGA Tours, lured by the huge almost obscene amounts of money players have been offered by LIV Golf  to switch camps, none of the fallout from this internecine war has been felt in Asia where the sport continues to grow exponentially. Symptomatic of this growth was the sight last week of the three biggest PGA men’s Tours all taking place in Asia and the biggest and wealthiest women’s Tour, the LPGA Tour of the United States, was also holding court in Asia. It’s very rare for the men’s PGA Tour to venture beyond the border of the USA but it did last week with the staging of the Zozo Championship in Japan. The leading players from the Japanese Tour lined up against many of the best from the USPGA Tour. Included in this field of approximately 80 placers was Ryan Fox. This was a real feather in Ryan’s cap to get an invite to this event. Again, like he has been for the past three weeks, Foxy was a model of consistency with 4 rounds close or just under par. Opening with a 2 over 72, then an even par 70, a third round 2 under 68 and a final one over 71.  Four good workmanlike rounds for sure but in a tournament where the winning score was 20 under par, a 1 over par for four rounds doesn’t bring many world ranking points or big dollars. Ryan now ranks at 109 on the FedEx Cup rankings. He’ll have to wait and see if that ranking inside the top 125 holds at year’s end, which if it does will see him keep his playing card for the US Tour next year. Elsewhere on the US Seniors Tour, Steve Alker had a truly wild rollercoaster ride at the inaugural Simmons Bank Championship in Arkansas. On Day One of this 3 round tournament Steve, as they say, shot the lights out when he reeled off 8 birdies and then eagled the par 5 18th for a round of 62, 10 under par, which gave him the first round outright lead. Unusually for Steve his consistency deserted him over the next two rounds, shooting a 2 under par 70 on Day Two then a 1 over par 73 on Day Three to finish in a tie for 12th place. Meanwhile back in Asia, in Korea, where the DP World Tour stopped, it ended in a fitting finish won by the South Korean golfer Byeong An who won the Genesis Championship. Kiwi Daniel Hillier, just inside the top ten when the 4th round started, faded on the last day recording a 2 over par 73 to finish in a tie for 22nd place, but still pocketed a healthy US$45,000 cheque for his week’s work. The Ladies LPGA Tour was in Malaysia where the Maybank Championship took place. Lydia Ko had another week off and it saw Ruoning Yin win for the second time in three weeks.

“Yes” screamed the front page of our largest daily newspaper, the New Zealand Herald. This, they claimed, was “Our Greatest Sporting Weekend”. Well, hard to disagree with that blunt summary of a couple of days of remarkable international achievements by our yachties, women cricketers, netballers and our male cricketers. Sadly, none of our leading golfers were able to join the party. Most of them were in action and performed well enough but not enough to match or surpass that America’s Cup win, the World Women’s Cricket T20 title, the historic test win by our male cricketers over India and a huge Silver Ferns netball win over their archrivals, Australia. Ironically, Ryan Fox was hard at work in the entertainment capital of the USA, Las Vegas. A win in ‘Sin City’ would have given him ample reasons to have partied long and hard on the Strip. As it was, he acquitted himself admirably over the four days with rounds of 70, 69, 65 and 69 at the Shriners Children’s Championship. It was one of those typical roller coaster weeks for Ryan, plundering a sack full of birdies over the four days, spliced unfortunately with a few double bogeys and a scattering of bogeys. However, his tie for 34 th place has done him no harm as he endeavors to secure his playing rights for the USPGA Tour next year. He must finish by year’s end inside the top 125 list of players. Currently he is 25 spots inside that 125 mark. This week he’s on the move again, pitching up in Chiba, Japan for the rich Zozo Championship worth US$8.5 million. His overall form in recent weeks has been pretty solid with good consistent finishes. What he would like to do this week is break out of those midfield finishes and nail down for himself a top 20 or better still a top 10 finish. That scenario would definitely confirm his playing status on the US Tour next year. Also in that part of the world has been Lydia Ko, who trekked back to her homeland for the BMW Ladies Championship which forms part of the USLPGA Tour. Lydia continued with her hot streak of the past couple of months, jumping out with rounds of 67 and 66 to put her within a couple of shots of the lead at the halfway stage, then almost inexplicably her putter went cold and she could do no better than see out the weekend with a pair of 71’s and a tie for 12 th place, her lowest finishing position in her last six tournaments which of course have included 3 wins. Her work off the tee and iron play in Korea was almost flawless. She retains her 3 rd place on the world rankings behind Nelly Korda and Liliana Vu. This week the LPGA Tour moves to Malaysia for the Maybank Championship. At the time of writing this column the field for the Malaysian event has not been released. Hopefully Lydia, given the form she is in, will want to line up again this week and keep that hot streak going.The winner last week in Korea was Australian Hannah Green who is having an excellent year, probably her best ever on this Tour. Her win last week was her third this year and has lifted her to 5 th on the world rankings. The rapid rise this year by Green has seen her overtake Minjee Lee, Australia’s leading female golfer in recent years. Lee, a two time Major winner, has struggled with her game this year and has now slipped to 17 th in the world rankings.

It was a very quiet week for our leading golfers, male and female. Only Ryan Fox and Steve Alker were plying their respective trades last week. Regulars Daniel Hillier and Sam Jones skipped the French Open on the DP World Tour and Lydia Ko had another week off, extending her current break to three full weeks since her last appearance on the LPGA Tour where she won the Kruger Open back on September 23. Lydia however, by all accounts, will return to the action this week when the Ladies PGA Tour stops by her country of birth, South Korea, for the BMW Ladies Championship. There are just six tournaments left on the LPGA schedule for 2024, culminating in the US$11 million CME Globe Tour Championship beginning on November 23. So, there is an awful lot of money up for grabs over the next five weeks for the world’s leading female golfers. If Lydia were to win in her home country this week, she would leap from 5th on this year’s money list to second behind Nelly Korda.  These two have been far and away the two dominant players in women’s golf in 2024 (9 wins between them). Yet if you look at their individual statistics for 2024 you might question that assertion of dominance. Neither, for example, is among the really big hitters in women’s golf. In fact, distance off the tee Lydia doesn’t even rank in the top 100. Currently she stands at 110th with an average drive this year of 255 yards. Korda, with an average drive of 269 yards, comes in only at 25th place.   But who was it that said in golf, “you drive for show and putt for dough”. Lydia Ko absolutely personifies that observation. Currently she is the 8th best putter on the LPGA Tour this year, averaging  29 putts per round, less than half a putt per round behind leader Danielle Kang of the USA. With wins in her last three starts Lydia will start this week as favorite as she seeks her 4th win of the season. It is certainly a golden run she’s having of late. She has now finished in the top ten in her last five starts which include those three wins. Meanwhile to the blokes on tour. Ryan Fox began the Black Desert Championship in Utah with a reminder to us all of just how good this guy is when he is on form. He recorded a 5 under par 65 off the back of two bogeys in his opening three holes. Then, the fox did truly get on the run, reeling off 7 birdies in his last 15 holes.  Unfortunately, Foxy couldn’t maintain that super low scoring pace over the ensuing three days as he went 72, 68, 70 to finish in a tie for 46th place, all of which has left him in 102nd place on the FedEx Cup points table. In order to retain his playing card for the USPGA Tour next year he has to finish the year inside the top 125 at year’s end which would seem he’s likely to do. Meanwhile Steve Alker on the Champions Tour finished in a tie for 5th place in the SAS Championship. As if yet again to underline his remarkable consistency Steve recorded only 2 bogeys from his 3 rounds and lifted his money winnings this year to US$2.1 million dollars to remain second on the money list and second on the Charles Schwab Cup list.

Big bucks were flowing the way of 5 Kiwi male golfers over the weekend - Ryan Fox, Steve Alker, Daniel Hillier, Kazuma Kobori and Sam Jones pocketed between them in excess of NZ$500,000 for their respective week’s work. We had 3 top 12 finishes, a 25th and a tie for 43rd. The big surprise was 22-year-old Kazuma Kobori - our newest and youngest touring pro. Not yet a full-time member of the DP World Tour but has been picking up the odd sponsor’s invite, including one last week at the rich Alfred Dunhill Championship in Scotland. This event attracted one of the strongest fields of the year anywhere outside of the Majors. Included in the field were a handful of LIV notables such as John Rahm, Patrick Reed and Brooks Koepka. However, one of the best performances from anyone over the final 36 holes came from young Kobori, arguably the youngest and least experienced player in the 168 strong field. After just sneaking into the field for the weekend, posting two opening rounds of 70 and with the pressure off his shoulders, he cut loose. And boy did he cut loose with rounds of 67 and a final round of 65, 7 under par. Playing the weekend 12 under par saw him catapult up the leaderboard from 54th to 12th place and with it a cheque of over NZ$110,000. Kazuma has earned a full playing card for the 2025 DP World Tour thanks to his remarkable run of success on the Australian PGA Tour last season. Meanwhile in Jackson, Mississippi, Ryan Fox was trying to nail down a high finish in the Sanderson Farms Championship in order to secure his full playing rights on the 2025 USPGA Tour and by the look of it he may have hit that goal with an 11th place finish which will go a long way to seeing him finishing comfortably inside the top 125, the cut-off mark for automatic playing rights next year. Foxy, with his hip problems of late apparently taken care of for the moment, shot 4 rounds in the 60’s. That should just about guarantee him his card for next year. His new ranking after this week’s showing has him ranked just inside the top 100. He is intending to play a couple of more tournaments while he’s in the States which he now can do with a lot of the pressure off him. Back on the DP World Tour Kiwi golfer Daniel Hiller found himself in a not dissimilar situation to that of Ryan Fox on the other side of the Atlantic. Daniel needed a reasonably high finish as well to take the pressure off him as he tries to secure his playing card on the DP World Tour for 2025. Well, he too rose to the challenge in the best possible way, shooting an opening round of 63, 9 under the card, at the Alfred Dunhill Championship being played in Scotland on 3 different courses including St Andrews. By week’s end he’d done enough to finish in a tie for 25th placed at 14 under the card and he now sits 93rd on the ranking list, well inside the cut-off position for next year of 115th. Sam Jones still has work to do to secure his playing card for next year but another solid week and a tie for 43rd has seen him move up a few places to 137th on the playing list but still needs to make up another 22 places at least to guarantee a place on the DP World Tour next year. Finally to Steve Alker and another good showing on the USPGA Champions Tour in Jacksonville, Florida, where he finished in a tie for 10th place, enough to see him remain second place for the season finale Schwab Cup.

Rory’s near misses continue while Lydia’s big wins mount. Yes, it’s been a truly fascinating week of golf, headlined by another outstanding showing from Lydia Ko. Two months ago, Lydia Ko’s golf game was once again all at sea, missing fairways, unable to get up and down from around the green with the consistency which has always marked her game, and even her legendary putting skills seemed to have deserted her. Nonetheless, off she went to the Olympic Games with her typically optimistic attitude. Regardless of how poor her results might be, Lydia will never display pessimism. She had her sights set on not just a medal but the gold medal to complete her 3-medal set. As her game fell into place, she could sense the gold medal was within her reach and as her confidence grew, her golf started to look like her game from a decade ago. One thing is for sure with Lydia, give her half a chance to snatch victory and more often than not she grabs it and so she did at Paris. But the fairytale was far from over. A fortnight later she showed once again why as a teenager she ruled the world of women’s golf. Neither the demands of the St Andrews links nor the appalling weather were enough to stop her storming to another victory and her third Major, this one being that very special title every golfer male or female yearns for - the Open Championship. But wait there’s more. After a well-deserved but short break she was back in the thick of it again last week in Ohio as the LPGA regular Tour resumed with the Kroger Queen City Championship. Now from start to finish here, over 4 rounds, we witnessed classic Lydia from a decade ago when she was picking up titles on this Tour with almost regular monotony. In Ohio she swept past this strong field which included the game’s Number One player, Nellie Korda. In the end Lydia romped home on the last day winning by 5 strokes, helped by arguably the best single round of golf she’s played for years - a 9 under 63. It was, to put it simply, flawless golf. Over the four days she recorded just one bogey. Her winning 4-round score was an incredible 23 under par. Now she has put herself in contention for the Player of the Year title which seemed an unrealistic expectation prior to the Paris Olympics, given Nellie Korda’s year which has seen her win 6 times in 2024 including a Major championship title. However, hold all tickets because here comes Lydia with a late charge that has seen her win 3 times now this year and pick up the Olympic Gold medal for good measure. The two of them, Korda and Ko, will soon go head-to-head in the rich, very rich, end of season Championship which will probably decide who gets that prestigious Player of the Year title. Meanwhile poor old Rory McIlroy once again for the second week in a row was edged out of a big title. Last week it was the Irish Open and this week the British PGA Championship at Wentworth. This was the title Ryan Fox won last year, but alas Foxy couldn’t mount any real defence of his title this year as his game fell away and saw him limp home, as it were, in 62nd place. Rory, however, in typical Rory fashion, went down blazing. He got himself into a three-way play-off, thanks in no small part to a 46-foot eagle putt which he drained on the 71st hole. So he, Billy Horschel and South Africa’s Thriston Lawrence went back out to the 18th hole for a sudden death play-off, after all three players finished the 72 holes in 20 under par. Thanks to a brilliant eagle 3 in the play-off the second time down the 18th hole, Billy Horschel edged out McIlroy for the title. The first American to win the British PGA title twice. New Zealander Daniel Hillier rounded out a good week with a final round of 68, a share of 18th place and a US$98,000 pay cheque for his week’s work. Daniel and Sam Jones are off to Spain this week for the Spanish Open which has attracted a world class field headed by Spain’s favourite golfing son, John Rahm.

A crop of top Kiwi golfers swapped furloughs for fairways this last week as the weekly grind of life as a touring professional resumed. Lydia Ko was the exception - she earned another week’s rest with the LPGA Tour giving way to the Solheim Cup. Three of our leading male players, Ryan Fox, Daniel Hillier and Sam Jones, all turned up at the same venue last week in Northern Ireland, Royal County Downs, for the Irish Open, headlined by Rory McIlroy. They were playing on what Rory calls just about his worldwide favourite course. Actually, Royal County Down, a links, is just a short drive from Rory’s home course, Holyrood, where he learnt to play this game. Sadly, only Sam Jones, out of the three Kiwis, made the cut. Ryan Fox bogeyed the last hole on Day Two to miss the cut by one stroke and Daniel Hillier was left a further shot back. Sam Jones made a reasonable fist of things, competing on this tough course probably for the first time, but a horror stretch on the front nine in Round 3 saw him drop 9 shots in 5 holes. This inevitably dropped him to near the bottom of the field, but he showed admirable determination by playing the last 27 holes of the tournament in 1 over par. For a rookie this shows he’s a fast learner. Royal County Down is one of Europe’s most demanding layouts. Being a links course it’s fully exposed to the furies of the North Pole’s storm-ridden weather patterns. A good drive upwind might roll out 200 yards, but downwind tee shots were flying out regularly over 350 yards. Rory himself hit one on the last day which sneaked out ever so closely to 400 yards. Unfortunately for the ever so popular Irishman he, not for the first time this year, let a big title slip from his grasp at the 11th hour on the last day. Here he was rolling along comfortably with a 2-shot lead, deep into the back nine, when inexplicably he 3-putted from 20-odd feet on the 17th green. In the group in front of him, Dane Rasmus Hojgaard was on a birdie tear, picking up shots on 16 ,17, and the par 5 18th . All of which meant that Rory, who had been leading the tournament by 2 shots with three holes left, now stood on the 18th tee, a 548 yard par 5 hole, and needed an eagle just to force a play-off. And boy did he give it a great shot. A brilliant 350-odd yard drive down the middle of a narrow fairway and then an equally exquisite long iron from 191 yards left him with an eminently straightforward putt of 8 feet for that elusive eagle he so wanted. In front of what must have been one of the biggest galleries at an Irish golf tournament, Rory left his putt millimeters short of the hole. He had to settle for second place, but still commands a huge points lead in the Race to Dubai title. Speaking of the Solheim Cup, an exact replica of the men’s Ryder Cup, the American women once again triumphed relatively comfortably beating Europe 15 and a half to 12 and half. Maybe someone in American women’s golf might like to look at the idea of America playing Asia rather than Europe. Currently there are 10 Asian golfers in the women’s top 20 world rankings. Europe has 2 and America 5.

According to the Golf Channel, Scottie Scheffler, the world’s leading golfer, pocketed US$62.2 million (NZ$100 million) in winnings from the 19 tournaments he played in 2024. In round figures that’s about US$3.25 million per tournament. Breaking it down even further, that’s just over US$800,000 for every round he played in this year. And oh… he also won the Gold Medal at the Paris Olympics… for which the poor thing didn’t receive as much as a cent. All up Scheffler won 8 tournaments this year, 7 on the USPGA Tour and the Olympics. His 7 wins in a single season is the most by a golfer in one year since a guy called Eldrick Woods won 9 in 2007. Yet Scheffler, one of the most likeable guys on the US Tour, wasn’t entirely happy with the FedEx Cup series format despite the windfall that spilled his way. He liked the old format better, where the big end-of-season purse went to the best player over the entire year, not to the player who just happened to win the finale off the back off a generous handicap. I kind of agree with Scheffler, except I have an even bigger gripe with the FedEx Cup format and that’s the absolute folly of using handicaps as the basis of the scoring for the finale. Handicaps are a wonderful thing… in amateur golf, because they level out playing ability between golfers. It means my mate who might play off a 24 handicap in theory could play Scottie Scheffler over 18 holes and the winner might only be discovered with the last putt on the last hole. But handicaps I’m sorry have absolutely no place in professional golf or any professional sport for that matter. When a code goes professional, the only thing that counts is money and every competitor starts from scratch in every contest. Yet in this, the richest tournament of the year, every player was given a handicap, ranging from -10 for the best player down to -4 for the poor bloke who happened to be ranked last on the FedEx Cup points table. Of course that’s the exact opposite of how handicaps work in amateur golf - the more you improve your golf the lower your handicap becomes. However here for the FedEx Cup, the brains of the USPGA did quite the opposite. The best player ie Scheffler was given the highest handicap and started the final with his score at -10 before he’d even hit a ball. The second-best player on the points table, Xander Schauffele, was given a -7 handicap so he began the tournament 3 shots behind the best player in the world, Scheffler, and so on it went down through the whole field. How on earth can that be seen as fair? Or put another way, imagine if the English Football Association (the FA) followed the FedEx Cup format and decided say for this season’s FA Cup final that Manchester City, as the best team across the season, would start the final against their opponents with a 2-1 advantage even before the match kicked off. It’s like something out of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. So back to the FedEx Cup, was it any wonder then with a generous starting handicap advantage over the rest of the field that Scheffler won the tournament by a handy 4 shot margin? But if it had been a traditional 72-hole stroke event he would not have won. The title and possibly that big cheque would have gone to Collin Morikawa who finished 22 under par - off the stick 2 shots better than Scheffler’s 4 round score of 20 under. Anyone for tennis?

Eight and half years is a long wait between drinks. That was the exasperating length of time Lydia Ko has had to endure between Major Championship victories. The drought ended appropriately for this seminal player in the women’s game at the very home, the very altar of golf, St Andrews, which also turned on for the last round one of its brutal weather specials - howling winds and driving rain. Through it all the slight figure of Ko remained somehow unbuffered and unperturbed. Remarkably, given the conditions, Lydia recorded only one bogey on her way to her lowest round of the tournament - a three under par 69. It was vintage Lydia, the tougher things got, the better she played. Two shots in particular over the closing holes reminded us once again why this phenomenal golfer had locked up two Major Championship titles while still a teenager. On the notorious Road Hole, the 17th measuring 446 yards, she confidently drew her drive over the edge of the grounds of the neighboring hotel into the middle of the fairway. From there into the face of driving rain she hit a 3 wood some 200 yards with everything she had to within 20 feet of the pin. Here she’d displayed the confidence and audacity to thread the ball incredibly down a thin narrow corridor between a massive greenside bunker and the pin. A few minutes later her nearest rival, Nellie Korda, the world’s Number One ranked golfer, attempted a similar shot from a similar position only to see it roll in to that greenside bunker and make a bogey five. Lydia knew however there was still to work to be done on 18 before claiming the big prize. So with a wedge in her hand and around 90 yards from the pin she calmly landed the ball just behind the hole and saw it screw back to within a couple of feet of the cup. History now was just a formality. In the end her winning margin was 2 shots. Yet for much of the back nine Ko and Korda were part of a bunch of 4 past or present world Number Ones tied at 6 under with just a couple of holes left. For those of us who have followed Lydia from her earliest days this was like a journey back in time as she revealed her incomparable array of golfing skills which inexplicably seemed to have deserted her for long periods over the past decade. The past fortnight however has seen Lydia return to her peerless best. Nellie Korda quite rightly still ranks as the world’s Number One female golfer. She must - she’s had 6 wins this year including a Major Championship title. But in this year of 2024 only Lydia Ko can claim ownership of the Olympic Games gold medal and a Major Championship title. She will now aways be regarded as one of the true legends of the women’s game. She’s had to fight her way back to the top in what undoubtedly has been an unparalleled era of expanding depth and quality in women’s golf. Who knows, there might even be one more unthinkable accolade within Lydia’s reach in 2024, the Halberg Supreme Sports award. Could she really pip three-time Paris gold medalist Lisa Carrington for the top Halberg prize in 2024? Ah! Let the debate begin.

Lydia Ko couldn’t quite deliver a winning 1-2 punch as she came up short at the Scottish Open. After leaving herself well placed after two sub par opening rounds, Lydia, for not the first time this year, wilted somewhat over the final 36 holes. She closed out with rounds of 71 and 74 which were nowhere near enough to get her into contention for back to back wins, following her last start win at the Paris Olympics. What Lydia was looking for here on the west coast of Scotland was a continuation of the form that carried her to that gold medal in Paris and also the chance to reset her game prior to the challenge of St Andrews, the home of golf, which looms this week as it hosts the Women’s Open Championship, the 5th and final Major of the year. To finish 9th at the Scottish Open against a strong field, all looking to hone their game as well for this week, was a job well done by Lydia who understandably may not have fully put the joy and satisfaction of Paris behind her yet. So this coming Major is really now the one remaining goal she’d like to collect before her expected retirement from the game within the next couple of years. Yes she has two Majors to her credit and even if she doesn’t add to that tally, she will retire from the game as one of the modern day greats of women’s golf. Few pundits in the game would have predicted after her second major in 2014 that this 17 year old would not add a third Major to her legacy over the next ten years. Sure she’s had some close shaves, but the other sad reality is, in recent years, Lydia has for the most part really struggled in all of the 5 Majors, even missing a few cuts in her darker days. With the Olympic gold medal fresh in her memory she should cut a very confident figure at the Open Championship this week. I’m reminded of a famous few words from 4 time Major winner, Ray Floyd, who, in reply to a question from an Australian television commentator, said, “Don’t get confused about the mental side of golf, it’s not 90% mental – it’s 100%”. Meanwhile the best of the Kiwi male golfers last week was once again Steve Alker with another of his solid tidy 4 round packages on display, finishing in a respectable 6th place on the PGA Champions Tour at the Rogers Charity Classic in Calgary, Canada. If it hadn’t have been for an unfortunate double bogey 6 on the par 4 13th hole in the last round he would have finished in a tie for third place. Ryan Fox finished outside the top 70 on the FedEx Cup points list so is not playing the FedEx series this year. The first leg of this 3 tournament series was won eventually by a very relieved Hideki Matsuyama. He began the day with a healthy 5 shot advantage over the field and comfortably held on to that advantage through the first 12 holes. Then for no apparent reason he self-imploded, dropping 4 shots in the next 4 holes. The big guns, and I mean the really big guns, Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schaufele and defending champion Victor Hovland, sniffed blood, and suddenly Matsuyama’s huge lead had sunk to the bottom of the Japan Sea. Hovland briefly held the lead until he faltered on 17 shifting the advantage to Schaufele who finished with a bogey free 7 under 63. He became the clubhouse leader but the deadpan Japanese wasn’t quite finished. After picking himself up off the canvas he mustered enough equilibrium to make a long 18 foot par for par on 17 then played a truly magnificent second from the rough to within 4 feet of the hole on 18. This long par four measuring nearly 500 yards was playing the toughest hole on the course on Day 4. Matsuyama claimed a rare birdie on this hole to record his 10th win on the USPGA. Right now Hideki looks likely to be one of just two golfers capable of stopping Scottie Scheffler winning this rich prize. The other is Xander Schaufele. Both are in very good nick so look out Scottie Scheffler, this FedEx title could be snatched away from you yet.

There have been many memorable NZ moments from the Paris Olympics. From a Kiwi golfer’s perspective Lydia Ko’s gold medal performance probably sits at the top. Such has been the erratic form of Lydia’s over the past couple of years it was hard to believe she could triumph in Paris against a field with a distinctly Major championship look about it. Lead by her putter , ably assisted by her driver and coupled with a sprinkling of those exquisite trade mark wedge shots all combined to get Lydia over the line and her hands on that gold medal she so anxiously sought. In some ways it was a bit of a trip back into her memorable past. One last hurrah possibly. Those days when she was regularly clocking victories on the LPGA tour against the world’s best. Always calm under pressure happy to her allow her short game to bail her out of trouble she made the game look so easy but as usually happens when you’re at the top in sport the only other movement you can make is downwards. And so it happened to Lydia. Victories dried up and missed cuts became the more obvious feature of her game. Caddies and coaches came and went in rapid fashion. Throughout these tough time Lydia’s smile never disappeared. In fact her optimism was probably her real coach during these dark days . She arrived in Paris with a couple of useful if not spectacular appearances behind her as she prepared for her 3rd Olympics. An even par opening round of 72 hardly provided evidence she was going to take this tough Parisian course apart. It nonetheless represented a solid start even if it did begin t with a bogey on the very first hole and a double on the par 4 15th . Day 2 saw Lydia’s putter take charge and as the putts started to drop a seriously low score looked on the cards . In the end she had to settle for a 5 under par 67 spoilt only by a bogey on the 18th . More of the same followed the next day . Six birdies and 2 bogeys and with a 4 under 68 Lydia had climbed into a tie for the 3 rd round lead with little known Swiss golfer Morgane Metraux who in her 14 starts on the LPGA this year had missed the cut in 9 of them. It was nonetheless a crowded leaderboard prime for someone to come out of the pack go low and grab the gold medal from under Lydia’s nose, It wasn’t to be fortunately for Lydia who again played solid reliable golf despite an error from the fairway on her first hole, going with hybrid for her second from about 150metres which saw her ball overfly the green leaving her with a steep downhill lie in rough which inevitably lead to a bogey. From that point however it was classic Lydia, the Lydia of old churning out the pars with 3 crucial birdies tossed in to the mix. All of a sudden her lead had shot out to 5 strokes as carnage was laying waste all over the course. The field were learning first hand why this French course is regarded as one of Europe’s toughest. Even Lydia at her near best was not exempt from punishment here. On the 13th she made a simple error after inexplicably plopping a half wedge shot into water from the middle of the fairway on a simple straightforward par 4. While this was happening another little known European golfer 25 year Esther Henseleit ranked 54th in the world from Germany was mastering these torridly fast greens as well stringing birdies together that defied her experience at this level. While Lydia was faltering on 13 Henseleit, playing a few holes in front of Lydia birdied both 17 and 18 cutting Lydia’s lead to just one stroke with 4 holes to play. This then was the time for Lydia to step up and calling on all her experience , patience and guile negotiated her way superbly through these demanding closing holes even managing to birdie the par 5 18th with a very conservative approach. She went with three wood off the tee laying up with her second and dumping her wedge inches from the hole. As she tapped the ball in for the win the relief was immediate and palpable as tears flowed freely down her face as she tried to absorb the enormity what she had just achieved winning the gold medal in her last Olympics , completing the 3 medal set and getting herself into golf’s Hall of Fame. Her superstar golfing status absolutely assured.

Sceptics and sadly there appear to be many in the golfing community who argue quiet vehemently golf should have no part of the Olympic Games. Their premise is based on the belief that an Olympic gold medal is not the pinnacle of success in golf. Winning a Major championship is and will always be golf’s highest achievement. Therefore only sports where the pinnacle of success is an Olympic gold medal should contest the Olympics. Quiet where this half baked theory comes from is unknown. Certainly Pierre de Coubertin when framing and outline his vision for the Modern Olympics back in the 1890’s made no mention of only opening the Games to those sports who believed an Olympic gold medal was the ultimate reward in their sport. These sceptics would do well to dwell firstly on the site of Scottie Scheffler on the victory dais at Le National Golf Club in; Paris after his win. At the playing of the American national anthem he broke down and sobbed almost uncontrollably overcome with emotion at what it meant to him to win an Olympic gold medal for his country in the sport he loves. Try telling him, the world ‘s pre-eminent golfer his sport has no right to be at the Olympiads. And as an aside how many times have you seen Scottie Scheffler reduced to tears after winning a Major. Then there’s the case of Rory McIlroy who was highly skeptical when he heard golf was being re-introduced to the Games in Rio in 2016. He promptly manufactured a fairly worthless excuse as to why he wouldn’t go to Rio. Eight years later after finishing 5th in Paris he claimed his Olympic experience was one of the most satisfying individual strokeplay events he’s ever played in, suggesting it wasn’t far short of a Ryder Cup experience. And sceptics want to deprive the game’s best players this unique experience of winning a medal for their country. The last day of the Men’s competition in Paris was as dramatic and as exhilarating as any last day I can recall from Majors over the 20 or 30 years. When the final day started most of the 8 players ranked in Paris inside the world’s top 10 were in contention on that last day. All of them had their moments, not all of them especially memorable. Some went backwards, some leapt in to contention spectacularly like Rory McIlroy who birdied the first 5 holes of the back nine to get within 1 shot of the lead with 3 holes to play. John Rahm was playing roller coaster golf for most of the day but never far from the lead as was Tom my Fleetwood and Hideki Matsuyama. In the end however the games number one player who silenced once again all the would be heirs to his throne. For the 7th time this year Scottie Scheffler emerged from the pack with his fail-safe brand of golf. Long and straight off the tee, peerless precision iron play and a superb display of putting. How anyone who loves golf could not enjoy that final day spectacle is beyond me. If the Olympics have no place on the golfing calendar then surely the weekly PGA events that make up the bulk of the 45 week annual tour in the US should also be scrapped because they too don’t by any stretch of the imagination represent the pinnacle in golf. And ask Russell Coutts if his gold medal medal at the 1984 Olympics represented the pinnacle of his yachting career.

Wiping away tears, an emotional Rory McIlroy tried to put into some kind of perspective his 2024 year, after his win in the Race To Dubai Championship final. He admitted his personal life as well as his golfing year had produced problems and difficulties. Usually it’s a given in sport that if you’re hit with serious personal problems, the first casualty is almost always your form. When personal scandals descended on Tiger Woods years back, he just stopped playing golf, full stop. Trying to line up a 2-metre putt to win a golf tournament when embarrassing details of your private life are scattered across the page of every paper in America is a pretty tough ask. To Rory’s credit when news broke mid-year that he and his wife had separated, he didn’t run for cover, he just kept on playing. It probably helped his golf no end that a week or so later they were back together again. But as we clearly saw after his win in Dubai last weekend, these things have taken their emotional toll on the Irishman. He also admitted he’d played in 27 tournaments this year, way more than his normal schedule of around 20 per year. Maybe he’s stumbled upon a new cure for grief - more golf. His win in that DP World Tour final was his third in 2024, two of them coming in the deserts of the Middle East, as well as the Wells Fargo Championship on the US Tour back in May. Frustration probably summed up his golf in 2024. His record in the Majors this year makes for an ugly read, for the most part - missing the cut at the Open Championship, a tie for 22nd in the Masters, 12th at the USPGA and a heartbreaking 2nd to Bryson DeChambeau in the US Open. So his Major drought continues, now stretching over 10 years. All of this helps explain his emotional state immediately after his win in Dubai. That too was an energy-draining exercise as Rasmus Hojgaard took him right to the death, the 72nd hole, before a McIlroy win was assured. The two, playing together in the last pair, staged in effect what was an enthralling match play seesaw over the back nine. Rory looked as if he was going to run away with the title after stringing 4 birdies back-to-back on the front nine to lead at one stage near the turn by 3 strokes. Doubt crept unfortunately into his game at that point. His driving lost a little of its normal accuracy, coupled with a three-putt green and a couple of Hojgaard birdies and the two were suddenly all square, both at 13 under. Rory rediscovered his mojo over the last three holes. A brilliant 6 iron to within a couple of feet to a tight pin placement on the par 3 16th which was playing 242 yards and a birdie 4 on the par 5 18th to Hoigaard’s par gave Rory a slightly comfortable looking 2-shot victory and a US$8million winner’s cheque. Across the Atlantic a sense of deja vu descended on the Women’s Tour as Nelly Korda racked up her 7th win of the year, confirming her Number One world ranking by taking out the Annika Championship. It’s the first time in 13 years a player has won 7 titles in a year on this Tour. Lydia Ko, after a third round of 65, had a longish shot at winning the title but a bogey-plagued final round saw her finish in a tie for 14th place. This was Lydia’s first outing for a month, so to finish the tournament at 6 under for her 72 holes I’m sure has satisfied her that her game is in good shape as she prepares for the rich Ladies Tour finale this coming  week.