{{ubiquityData.prevArticle.description}}
{{ubiquityData.nextArticle.description}}
The following events took place within the space of a few days earlier this year:
A cream envelope arrived at Bernd Wiesberger’s home near Vienna, Austria, on 4 January. Wiesberger had a smile on his face as he tore it open. “Great to receive this in the mail yesterday” he tweeted about the invitation to this year’s Masters. “Let’s hope it is going to be an April Masters this year.” Hope is the key word in that sentence. The 2020 Masters was moved from April to November with no spectators. The 2021 Masters is scheduled for its traditional early April slot with talk of some spectators being admitted. But who really knows whether the patrons will return?
Meanwhile, the experienced caddie John McLaren, who is known as “Johnny Long Socks” because of his habit of wearing calf-length, vividly coloured socks, was about to board a plane to the United States to join Paul Casey for their sixth season together. McLaren hoped 2021 would include working for Casey at the Olympics, a lifetime ambition, and then at the Ryder Cup. But he said that Casey had been discombobulated about the events of last year and he felt the same way too.
At his Sussex home, Sky Sports golf commentator Ewen Murray was preparing to travel to the Middle East to commentate on only his third live event since last March. “I turned pro on my 17th birthday, and for years I always travelled to Africa at this time of the year,” Murray said. “When I stopped playing and moved into television I was crossing the Atlantic to the US every three weeks. Last year I was at the Players (in March) and the next event I travelled to was the DP World Tour Championship in November. I have never travelled so little as I did last year.”
“ ... I’m hopeful that come June or July we will start getting back to normality. Vacations will kick in. People will start attending tournaments again. We’ll have a semblance of atmosphere.”
PAUL McGINLEY
Earlier this month, Paul McGinley was asked for his thoughts on the coming season. “It’s (going to be) a half and half season,” the 2014 European Ryder Cup captain said. “The first half will be similar to what we had last season with little or no crowds and behind closed doors and an entirely different dynamic from before. I’m hopeful that come June or July we will start getting back to normality. Vacations will kick in. People will start attending tournaments again. We’ll have a semblance of atmosphere.”
In 2020 the buzzword began with B for Brexit. In 2021 the buzzword begins with C for COVID-19. But a word beginning with the letter U now hangs in the air – uncertainty. There’s usually certainty about what will unfold most years. The four majors are set in stone. So is the Ryder Cup in alternate years. This season, after last year’s turmoil, there is no such certainty. The European Tour landscape looks uncertain and unusual.
First some good news. There’s growing expectation the Open Championship and the Ryder Cup will be played, albeit question marks hang over allowing fans for both events. It is thought not having insurance against cancellation, unlike last year, will be an important factor in the R&A’s staging the Open in July. And the Ryder Cup? Without fans? “I wouldn’t like it,” Murray said. “The Ryder Cup needs noise and atmosphere but if it has to be then so be it.”
This change in thinking has been brought about by the relative success of the three major championships held in 2020. “If the other three majors went off last year without spectators and everybody enjoyed them, then could the Open and the Ryder Cup be played without spectators?” McGinley said. “The answer is, ‘Yes.’ These are changing times. These are unique times. It is time to get on with things.”
European Ryder Cup captain Pádraig Harrington agrees with McGinley. The man who will lead Europe at Whistling Straits in September not only believes the event will be played, but that fans will be admitted. Harrington told The Times recently: “Nobody has a crystal ball but I’m an optimist. I am going full fans for September and the greatest Ryder Cup of all time … If you’ve got a ticket you should be booking your flights now.”
Further good news is that the smaller purses of events on the European Tour in 2020 events, and a number of other factors, prompted an upsurge of young talent that might not otherwise have broken through. “Rasmus Højgaard seems to be the real deal,” McGinley said of the Dane, a two-time winner last season who is not yet 20. “I am pinpointing him as a potential Ryder Cup player.
“I was very impressed with Sami Välimäki,” McGinley continued. The 22-year-old Finn won the Oman Open in only his sixth appearance on the European Tour, which helped him win the Sir Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year award.
“You can have all the heart in the world but you have to have a golf game,” McGinley added. “Välimäki has. His swing is very simple. It goes straight up the line and straight down the line. He hits it a good distance and he putts very well. Trying to be rookie of the year, getting up a head of steam in Dubai to finish off a very strong week and pip Højgaard means, to me, there is something about him.”
McGinley believes that Viktor Hovland, the 22-year-old Norwegian who was ranked 14th in the world at the start of last week, is good enough to play all five matches in Wisconsin, which would be rare for a rookie. “Viktor is on a trajectory like Sergio García was when he hit the Ryder Cup scene,” McGinley said. In the 1999 match at Brookline, Boston, a 19-year-old García played all five matches on his debut and won 3½ points.
Robert MacIntyre, the left-handed Scot who was rookie of the year in 2019, Sam Horsfield, a protégé of Ian Poulter, and Välimäki all caught Murray’s eye in 2020. “Sami has a great attitude, a good temperament and plays golf at the right speed,” Murray noted. “What these young men have to do now is move to the next level. They got a break last year playing in 20 or so events. Now they have to find a further gear and move into overdrive.”
In all this let us not forget the statistics Bryson DeChambeau may achieve in 2021. The American has stated he wants to increase his ball speed from 210 mph to nearer 230 mph. That’s inconceivable to an amateur and to some of his peers. Inconceivable is another word that might be heard in 2021, as it is not inconceivable that spectators and DeChambeau’s peers will be shaking their heads at one more astonishing statistic achieved by the burly American.
But do we really know what will happen this year? The Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship is due to start in a few days, the first of the European Tour’s ambitious and creditable 2021 schedule, and the season’s first Rolex Series event. It should be a time of optimism, high hopes.
Yet as this was being written, news came that the Challenge Tour and Sunshine Tour have postponed three co-sanctioned tournaments in South Africa scheduled for next month and the air corridor for travellers between the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates was being suspended. That same day two records were set in the United Kingdom’s battle against COVID-19 – the number of deaths in one week and the number of new cases.
Has there ever been such uncertainty at the start of a golfing year as exists in January 2021? Probably not.
E-Mail John