You won’t believe me, but I’d really, really love to shine a little sunlight on miserable May instead of tapping into my inner Eeyore yet again. Honestly.
Ideally, I’d love to be concentrating on the beauty of Rory McIlroy’s two flushed 250-yard approaches to the 16th and 18th at the K Club in the Irish gloaming on Sunday, and the relief felt by all that our continent’s favourite seems to be back in his groove.
Or perhaps even more parochially enjoying Scotland’s Russell Knox and his delightful progress – snapping himself in the hailstones while trying to chase down Rory on Sunday – in making his way up the rankings towards the Ryder Cup or even the Olympics.
Or maybe delighting in the joy of Sergio Garcia at the Byron Nelson – his ninth win in America, matching Seve’s record – while pointing out how few top order tournaments have been won this season by Americans with Hazeltine fast approaching.
So I’ve mentioned all those first. But sadly, the dark side’s going to creep in again…
Wentworth loses its lustre
Last December Keith Pelley, the colourful chief executive of the European Tour, said this week’s BMW PGA Championship no longer qualified as the tour’s “flagship” event.
The media clutched their pearls at this affront to the traditional showpiece of the season at Wentworth.
But as he has been in so many things in his first year, the man in the lilac sports jacket was dead right.
This week Masters champion Danny Willett is present, but look at the number of banner names who are not. Rory, Sergio, Henrik, Casey, Poulter and Justin Rose (although that’s due to injury) are out of the field.
The main reason is that they’ve butchered the West Course, one of the jewels of inland golf. The greens in May have been a problem for some time at this event and Richard Caring, the former owner, simply ruined Ernie Els’ re-design by imposing worse features than anything Donald Trump has ever tried on his various properties.
He then sold the club to a Chinese holding company, Reignwood, who wanted to turn it into a playground for super-millionaire oligarchs. Although they’ve failed, the annual idyll in the Surrey woodlands appears forever tainted.
Having seen off the club’s owners, residents then spitefully slapped a bill 20 times higher than they usually charge the Tour for use of the estate’s roads during the championship.
The Tour’s annual dinner, held on the Tuesday night prior to the championship, was discontinued this year without fanfare. Most of the missives emanating from the Tour’s PR division about the BMW PGA have highlighted the many stars in the pro-am on Wednesday rather than the championship itself.
It’s been a good run at Wentworth, but nothing lasts forever. If I were the Tour I’d be seriously considering getting away from the West and those poa anna infested putting surfaces.
There are viable alternatives in the Surrey/Berkshire area – sponsors will want to stay around there due to the proximity to London – at Sunningdale, Walton Heath or The Berkshire.
Even a few years away travelling a bit further while Wentworth sorts itself out would be a sound move.
Something must be done to renew the lustre of the championship and get the big names back to what should be the UK’s premier event outside the Open.
Muirfield may not miss its turn
Regular readers will know my views and disappointment on events at the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers last week and there’s no need to trawl those arguments again.
It’s worth examining where we go now. If Muirfield stays off the rota, the odds on the R&A going to Turnberry – confirmed venues currently take us up to 2022 – are greatly increased, which probably explains Donald Trump’s silence on this matter.
But I don’t think Muirfield will be absent from the rota for long. While the letter which mobilised a third of the membership to vote against women members was plainly ludicrous – especially for a golf club with more legal minds than any in Britain – it can be read as a delay rather than an outright no.
They can, and probably will, change their mind. It only requires 14 members to do so. And the R&A, who won’t name the 2023 Open venue until 2020, will welcome them back when they do.
Slumbers’ decisive action
Let’s be clear, Peter Dawson, the former R&A CEO, would not have sanctioned Muirfield being struck off the rota. He was always contemptuous of the idea that anything but quality of the course mattered.
His successor, Martin Slumbers, acted decisively last week. The R&A needed to make a stand on The Open, especially with a similar situation at Royal Troon brewing.
Recalcitrant Troon members now know exactly where they stand. Do they want to lose the Ayrshire economy the £50m Open windfall in future years for a tiny principle?