Donegan on Drysdale

Neat story from Lawrence Donegan on David Drysdale. Well, neat in the sense that Drysdale demonstrated great integrity and class.

Donegan on Van de Velde

Lawrence Donegan has some fun with the Van de Velde story.

He'll Even Wear a Kilt and Shave His Legs

Jean Van de Velde is going to try to enter the Women's British Open.

"I'll even wear a kilt and shave my legs," he said Thursday after shooting a 7-over-par 78 in the first round of the Volvo Masters.

Van de Velde became infamous in the 1999 British Open when he led by three strokes going to the 72nd hole, then wound up losing the tournament in a playoff.

The 39-year-old Frenchman is upset with a recent policy set by the Royal and Ancient Golf Club to allow women to qualify for next year's British Open.

"My whole point is where do we draw the line?" Van de Velde asked, and called the rule change a farce.

"If we accept that women can enter our tournaments, then it applies that men can play with women," he said.

The Frenchman said he would get an application and attempt to qualify.

Next year's women's British Open is set for Aug. 3-6 at Royal Lytham. The event is run by the Ladies' Golf Union, which established a gender policy this year.

The policy says: "It shall be a condition of any competition organized by the Ladies' Golf Union that players must be of the female gender."

Ghosts of Jakarta

Lawrence Donegan takes what should be a boring Volvo Masters preview story and ponders some of the current events in big time golf.

Huggan and Torrance

John Huggan catches up with Sam Torrance and of course it provides a fun read.

Dunhill Decline

Lawrence Donegan looks at what a non-event the Dunhill Cup has become. 

Huggan On World Match Play

John Huggan previews the upcoming World Match Play and looks at its past:

None of which should blind us to what was, for long enough, the biggest shortcoming of the tournament. Namely, that the field was shamelessly stacked with clients of the late Mark McCormack's International Management Group. Given that the event was McCormack's brainchild - and pride and joy - this was hardly surprising, but it must be acknowledged that such blatant bias did nothing for the credibility of what could and should have been an even greater event.

Nowadays, things are different. Not only has McCormack gone to the big office in the sky - it's hard not to imagine him up there organising a series of lucrative exhibition matches between Young Tom Morris and Bobby Jones - players qualify for the expanded 16-man field through strict and well-defined criteria. No more does IMG automatically claw back its percentages from every player in the draw.