It's maybe not just all about the Irish, golf this year. If Paul Casey can hold on to his three-shot overnight lead tomorrow at Wentworth, to win the European PGA championship, he will also move up to 3rd in the world rankings, behind only Woods and Mickelson. That would make Casey the highest-ranked English player since Faldo was world number one in 1993, Lee Westwood only ever having got as high as number 4 in the meantime.
Funnily enough, out of the group of English kids who came through around seven or eight years ago - Luke Donald, Justin Rose, Nick Dougherty, David Howell, Ian Poulter - Casey was always the one I felt would make the biggest impact, in the end. Perhaps because he was the one who wasn't on the front cover of Golf World every month, modelling silly trousers or proclaiming that he was the best player in the world. All of them really should be winning and challenging for major titles by now, but (Poulter aside) none of them have, to date. Curious as to why not - maybe English golf, now, is suffering from the same "too much money, far too young" drain that impacted America's "wasted generation" of the mid-70s - Kite, Crenshaw, Wadkins, Pate, Twitty, Stadler, Sutton - who were utterly swamped in the '80s by the hungrier Europeans and World players.
Funnily enough, out of the group of English kids who came through around seven or eight years ago - Luke Donald, Justin Rose, Nick Dougherty, David Howell, Ian Poulter - Casey was always the one I felt would make the biggest impact, in the end. Perhaps because he was the one who wasn't on the front cover of Golf World every month, modelling silly trousers or proclaiming that he was the best player in the world. All of them really should be winning and challenging for major titles by now, but (Poulter aside) none of them have, to date. Curious as to why not - maybe English golf, now, is suffering from the same "too much money, far too young" drain that impacted America's "wasted generation" of the mid-70s - Kite, Crenshaw, Wadkins, Pate, Twitty, Stadler, Sutton - who were utterly swamped in the '80s by the hungrier Europeans and World players.