"Who are you, who are you?"
/John Huggan looks at the future well-being of the Ryder Cup and says it faces major issues due in part to the PGA Tour's apathy toward the event. Therefore, he notes the presence of a certain man all week on the first tee. Huggan calls it hypocrisy, I think that's strong. More like stunning audacity.
So it is that, pushed back by the still recent introduction of the incomprehensible but highly lucrative Fed-Ex Cup play-offs, we are here at Celtic Mud… sorry, Manor, in the first week of October rather than the middle of September, a time when better weather is at least more likely. Don't hold your breath on that changing any time soon, too. Four years hence, when the Ryder Cup is due to make what will be only its second-ever visit to Scotland at Gleneagles, the matches will again be pushed into October, a time when - although obviously unlikely - snow is possible so far north.
All of which makes the smug presence of PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem on Celtic Manor's first tee these past few days all the more hypocritical. There he has been, posing for smiling pictures with all the other so-called dignitaries as if the huge popularity of this unique and highly enjoyable event was somehow down to him and his evil empire. At least the good-humoured crowd has been dishing out some well-merited stick to the preening bureaucrat, asking rhetorically, "Who are you, who are you?"