World Cup fails to inspire
BBC Sport golf correspondent Iain Carter on why tournament lacks sparkle
BBC Sport | Golf | World Edition
Entries Tagged as ''
VIDEO GALLERY: Tour Players and Their Favorite Music
Tiger Woods: Hootie and the Blowfish
Tiger Woods has a few favorite groups — he emerged from his 2010 scandals to see a Nickelback show and Van Halen once headlined his Tiger Jam fund-raising concert, but when he needed a wedding band, he called his pals Hootie and the Blowfish.
Padraig Harrington: Eminem
Harrington is a big fan of the Detroit rapper, whom he called a "genius." No question, the three-time major win relates to this lyric: “You only get one shot so don’t miss your chance to blow, opportunity comes once in a lifetime, yo.”
Justin Rose: Michael Jackson
Sorry, Jim Nantz, it's not Bette Midler. Rose told Golf Magazine that his favorite song is the King of Pop’s “Man in the Mirror.”
Nick Watney: Jay-Z
Watney is one of the biggest hip-hop fans on Tour, and Jay-Z is his favorite.
Bill Haas: Mark Cohn
Haas named the 1990s gem “Walking in Memphis” by Mark Cohn as his favorite song in an interview with Golf Magazine. Of course, when Haas sings along he adds his own lyric: “Walking in Memphis, with $ 10 million in my hand, walking in Memphis, but do I really feel the way I feel?”
Hunter Mahan: The Clash
As you probably guessed from the “Oh, Oh, Oh” music video where he raided David Lee Roth’s closet, Mahan likes to rock. In an interview with The New York Times, Mahan name-checked Lincoln Park, Florence and the Machine and the Clash as favorite bands.
Rickie Fowler: Eminem
Another PGA Tour Eminem fan. We’re guessing the Quail Hollow members are going to tell Rickie to turn this down.
Keegan Bradley: Mumford and Sons
The PGA champ tweeted that Mumford & Sons are “officially the greatest band of all time.”
D.A. Points: Snoop Dogg
Points said “Who Am I?” from Snoop Dogg’s 1993 debut “Doggystyle” is his favorite song in an interview with Golf Magazine.
Fluff Cowan: The Grateful Dead
Jim Furyk’s caddie Cowan is a longtime Deadhead.
Luke Donald: Coldplay
Donald said he listened to a lot of trance music when he was younger, but his musical tastes are more mainstream now, according to an interview with PGATour.com.
Lee Westwood: Wham!
Westwood confessed to The Express (UK) newspaper that he had “his first snog” to Wham’s “Last Christmas.”
John Daly: Kid Rock
Daly and Rock played in one of the most famous pro-ams ever at the 2008 Buick Open, when Daly teed up a ball on Rock’s tall-boy can of Bud.
Tweets of the Week: Michelle Wie’s pie, Ian Poulter’s cut and Darren Clarke’s loafers
Thanksgiving Tweets
Plenty of golfers gave thanks via Twitter for their blessings on Thursday. Here are three of the most unique messages.
The Prince's New Clothes
Chubby Chandler (@chubby6665) is Darren Clarke's (@DarrenClarke60) agent and close friend. Why he chose to take a photo of Clarke, whose nickname is The Prince, we don't know, but Christina Kim (@TheCristinaKim) seemed to like it.
Johnson fishes big too
Dustin Johnson (@DJohnsonPGA) is known for being one of the biggest hitters in golf. Looks like he's a big hitter on the high seas too.
Ian's injury
Luckily for Ian Poulter (@IanJamesPoulter), his sunglasses will probably hide his shaving mishap.
Major opportunity
When it's off-season for golfers, they tend to hit the slopes or the beaches, but when tennis star Andy Roddick's season is over, he heads to the course. A very nice course.
Truth & Rumors: Allenby challenges Ogilvy to fight
Frustrations from the Presidents Cup boiled over as a spat between Robert Allenby and Geoff Ogilvy came close to blows in front of 150 guests at the Hyatt Regency Coolum while celebrating Greg Chalmers Australian PGA victory, reports Steve Orme. Allenby, who went 0-4 without earning the International team a single point at Royal Melbourne, laid the groundwork for the feud when he placed the blame on his teammate for his poor performance.
The 40-year-old hit back at criticism of his own play on Thursday and appeared to deflect the blame onto his playing partners—Retief Goosen, YE Yang and Ogilvy.
He claimed Goosen missed several birdie putts in Thursday's foursomes, insinuated that Yang didn't pull his weight in Friday's fourball and claimed Ogilvy 'hit me in the tree three times off the tee and I had to chip out three times', in Saturday's foursomes.
Ogilvy, who was playing alongside Allenby at the Australian PGA, responded to his fellow Victorian's comments via Twitter:
While Ogilvy maintained that the tweet was genuine when questioned by the media, Allenby took offense to what he believed to be a sarcastic retort and confronted Ogilvy.
When Allenby sauntered over to Ogilvy's table and sat down at around 9:15 PM on Sunday night, the 2006 US Open champion immediately made his dissatisfaction known.
He was overheard accusing Allenby of throwing him under the bus and openly questioned his character, which sent the four-time PGA winner into a rage.
Allenby inadvertently broke a wine glass and screamed 'do you want to go?', prompting Ogilvy, who was surrounded by seven friends, to get out of his chair in front of a captivated and stunned audience.
However, Allenby's temper struck again when Ogilvy sought out an apology later in the evening.
The ugly stoush escalated once again as Allenby invited his adversary to meet him outside of the main square, to which Ogilvy quipped 'I'd like that'.
The squabbling finally came to an end as Allenby stormed out while Ogilvy watched on calmly. If only Allenby had shown this much fight during the Presidents Cup…
Kaymer won't join McIlroy, Westwood on PGA Tour
After declining membership a year ago, both Rory McIlroy and Lee Westwood will take their talents to South Beach the PGA Tour. Martin Kaymer, however, has no intentions of joining his peers, according to Waggleroom's Emily Kay.
"I have no intention of joining Lee and Rory because it means playing just too many tournaments," said Kaymer, who noted that playing 12 European and 15 U.S. events would require "just far too much traveling."
Kaymer sounded bemused by McIlroy and Westwood’s seesaw relationship with the PGA Tour.
"I just don't know why Rory and Lee go back and forth and that to me seems a little strange. One year they are on the PGA Tour and next they're not."
Omega president calls PGA Tour and European Tour "greedy"
Stephen Urquhart, president of Swiss watchmaker Omega, said the PGA Tour and European Tour are
"greedy" for continually adding more and more tournaments to their schedules, according to Reuters' Bernie McGuire.
"The big problem with golf at present is a calendar issue and we've told all the Tours that they have to stop being so greedy," Urquhart told reporters. "There are too many tournaments and they are adding tournaments all the time.”
Urquhart followed up his remarks by asserting that the two tours have shown little respect to Asia.
"And to treat Asia as the stopgap as they do with this week's World Cup is not right. It's wrong and the Tours are not going to win if they keep treating Asia as a stopgap. They need to show Asia more respect.”
"Why can't there be a big event like the World Cup here in Asia in June? What's the difference in taking a flight from London to Beijing or London to Los Angeles?”
Urquhart also confirmed that Omega has ended their sponsorship of golf’s World Cup and will return to sponsoring the Hong Kong Open, questioning the Federations of Golf Tours decision to award Mission Hills hosting rights to the World Cup for the next 10 years.
"The Federation and Mission Hills know my feeling on this because before this year I was not happy with the fields we were getting, but we've got three Major winners here this year and there's been a lot more respect shown to the event," he said. "While there are not too many countries in the world who could organize an event like China, the tournament needs to travel around the world."
"Done properly and packaged properly, and staged at a better time of year, no one … would go anywhere else in the world that given week but to play in the World Cup.”
World Cup to mirror Olympic format in 2013
Golf’s return to the Olympics in 2016 has inspired the World Cup to change its format next year from a two-man team competition to 72 holes of stroke play. Ken Chu, the chairman and CEO of Mission Hills, confirmed that these changes will be implemented in 2013, also noting that the World Cup will command world ranking points. Again, Reuters' Bernie McGuire has the story:
"The World Cup will change format, and it will begin enjoying world rankings points, and it will still be held biennially and at around this time of year,” said Chu.
The tournament will bring back an individual four-round trophy for the first time since 1999, when Tiger Woods won the individual award in Malaysia.
"But with golf to be in the 2016 Olympics the equation in golf changes, and these changes to the World Cup will be having the Olympics in mind.”
Tweet of the Day
Otto clinches South African Open
Hennie Otto survives a nerve-wracking final few holes to win his home South African Open by one shot at Serengeti Golf Club in Ekurhuleni.
BBC Sport | Golf | World Edition
United States claim World Cup win
Matt Kuchar and Gary Woodland combine for six birdies as the United States win the World Cup by two shots from England and Germany.
BBC Sport | Golf | World Edition