Noticeable Uptick In Americans At European Tour Q-School

Steve Elling talks to the American duo of Peter Uihlein and Brooks Koepka about their successful run of golf in Europe. With the new PGA Tour structure that requires Web.com Tour play to graduate to the big tour, and even then with no guarantee of the chance to play, Europe may increasingly become an answer.

This was eye-opening:

In 2011/12 combined, 85 Americans signed up for European Q-School. This year alone, 83 entered. Moreover, three Americans made it to the finals last year, while 11 are playing for a full tour card this week in Spain.

And...

“People say BK and I are trailblazers, but it’s also the changes with the Web.com that are a big part of this,” Uihlein said.

European Q-School chief Mike Stewart said American players have cited the lack of direct access as a huge reason for their record presence in at the final stage in Spain, plus the fact that Q-School in the States costs roughly US$5,000 (Dh18,400). European Q-school costs half as much at £1,350 (Dh7,879). The third reason was both popular and easy.

“I suspect that the success of Uihlein and Koepka has also played a part,” Stewart said in an email from Spain.

World Match Play Returning To England?

Once a staple of the European Tour schedule, the Volvo World Match Play may be coming back as a fall event, reports Derek Lawrenson in the Daily Mail.

As for venue and location, IMG's Guy Kinnings suggests an English venue would be preferred.

‘We’re excited to be returning to the October date and our hope is that this will mean a return to the UK,’ said Guy Kinnings, global head of IMG Golf, who promote the event.

Kinnings is a passionate advocate for another tour event in England, so fingers crossed.

Sergio Believes The Days Of Fried Chicken Jokes Are Behind Him

Shane O'Donoghue got Sergio for a one-on-one to talk about the state of all things Garcia and to find out what exactly he learned from uttering a racially insensitive joke at Wentworth last May, which subsequently led to embarrassing remarks from European Tour Commish George O'Grady.

"I didn't mean it in a bad way. When I was driving back to the hotel, I started thinking about it," Garcia told Shane O'Donoghue.

Nice to know the dead silence in the room took that long to sink in! Oh, and it's still Steve Sands' fault.

"Obviously, I didn't expect that question at all and you try to be funny and it comes out the wrong way I guess," he added.

And Mr. Contrite:

"It was horrible, but what's done is done. Everybody knows how I feel about it, so I think they should be fine with it and if not, it's kind of their problem," he said.

"The most important thing is learning from all those things.

"I'm making sure that all those experiences make you stronger, a better person and things like that. I think that I've learned from those things and I just need to keep getting better at it, and hopefully keep making people happy."

If you have sixty seconds or so of your life to never to enjoy again:

Video: Euro Tour's Finest Play From The 22nd Floor

Another entertaining European Tour promo video, this time for the Atlantis in Dubai and the season ending points race. Nice surprise cameo too.

Update on 2013-11-12 05:33 by Geoff

**You may recall there was some tremendous First World complaining about the European Tour mandating players start two of three "Race To Dubai" events. Ernie Els even WD'd from this week in supposed protest.

Steve Elling explains part of the ire, justified in this instance I'd say:

Bigger cracks emerged at the second event in the series, the lucrative HSBC Champions in Shanghai. The co-sanctioned, 78-man event event is not run by the European Tour, which has little sway over the composition of the field. As a result, 10 of the top 40 on the Race to Dubai points list did not find a place on the tee sheet, including Ryder Cup player Nicolas Colsaerts, Thorbjorn Olesen, Rafael Cabrera-Bello and Shane Lowry.
In theory, a points race represents a season-long meritocracy. But if all three of Dubai’s lead-in events have fields of 78 players or fewer, it crimps the opportunity for top players in the points list to participate. In reality, designating co-sanctioned events as Finals Series stops meant even fewer spots were available to European Tour regulars.

It felt like a closed shop.

At the co-sanctioned BMW Masters, 14 players from the China Golf Association were included in the field. At the HSBC, because of the tournament format, Rory McIlroy and Luke Donald played, while players having better 2013 seasons were benched. In points, both players were outside the crucial top 60, the number required to land a spot in the Dubai finale.

Six of the 78 players at HSBC were from China, including two ranked outside the top 800 in the world. One of them failed to break 80 in three of his four rounds and finished a whopping 59 shots off the lead. Ouch.

Video: Simon Dyson DQ Incident At BMW Masters

GolfCentralDaily has posted the video and they express sympathy for Simon Dyson after he tapped a mark of some kind in his line.

It's an obvious violation, one that tour players get around daily by pretending to fix a ball mark. So in that sense, yes, the rule is silly. But he still should not have done it. He was not available for comment after the round.

The video: