Yorkshire golf trio eye Wentworth tonic

Among the stellar cast at the European Tour’s flagship event at Wentworth are three Yorkshiremen all hoping to give their summer some much-needed impetus.

Simon Dyson, Richard Finch and Danny Willett all tee off at the BMW PGA Championship today in need of a tonic.

Dyson has had a stop-start season since his two victories late last year elevated him into a career-high finish of eighth on the money list.

His ascenscion brought the reward of a place in the field at all four majors and the WGC events for the first time, and to assist him in his preparation for those, he chose to base himself in America on the PGA Tour.

That decision backfired somewhat with a failure to induce sponsors invites that resulted in the momentum he generated at the back end of 2009 being checked.

On the eve of his Masters debut he confided that he would be heading back to Europe to try and regain that belief, but even that has not been plain sailing with an encouaging 17th place in Spain for the 32-year-old from Malton countered by a withdrawal from the Italian Open two weeks ago with a sore back.

Dyson has dropped to No 69 in the world from a career-high 46 at the turn of the year. He is still clinging however to a place in Colin Montgomerie’s Ryder Cup team - he is eighth on the points list from which nine qualify automatically - but with 15 weeks to go and a host of household names like Luke Donald, Sergio Garcia and Ross Fisher on the outside looking in, Dyson needs some big results in the top tournaments this summer to secure a debut at Celtic Manor.

Finch’s ambitions are rather more modest as he enters an event - which includes five of the world’s top 10 - at which he has never made the cut.

After a fallow 2009 following his breakthrough, double-win year in 2008, the Hull pro has rediscovered a little form with second-place finishes in India and Andalucia. He sits 33rd on the Race to Dubai standings.

“I’m pleased with the start I’ve made,” said Finch, who will have to qualify at Sunningdale on June 7 if he is to make the field at the Open for the third year running.

“But it will be nice to kick-on, especially with a lot of big events this summer.”

And Rotherham’s Willett makes his PGA Championship debut this week on the back of a solid start to the season, with three top 10s in 11 tournaments and only two missed cuts.

But with fellow rising stars Rhys Davies and Chris Wood making big impressions, the PGA represents the perfect opportunity for the 22-year-old to underline his potential with a defining result.

One man sure to revel in the Wentworth atmosphere without worrying about the consequences on his career, is Dore and Totley professional Neil Cheetham, who represents PGA North region in what is his fourth PGA appearance in the last seven years.

Cheetham, 42, who divides his time between Britain and South Africa where he comfortably retained his card last year, said: “I’m looking forward to playing Wentworth again.”

Looking back on a marvellous decade

Ok, so I warned you the blogging could be sporadic, and after a 10-week hiatus it's proved just that.

But here I am again, with a spare half-hour in an action-packed day at journalism's coal-face, attempting to entertain and educate in equal measure.

Happy New year to you all first and foremost, and although it's a little late, to kick-off the blog in 2010 I thought I'd look back on some of my fondest memories of the past decade.

I'll go with a top five and if I miss the obvious, feel free to correct me. All this is from memory, and avoiding chekckng Wikipedia to put facts right.

So here it is, my top five sporting moments of the Naughties, in no particular order...

1) Goran Ivanisevic wins Wimbledon in 2001. It was sport that brings a tear to the eye and I had just started out on my journalism career and had to watch it in the office on a small portable telly with the sound turned down.

Ivanisevic was one of tennis's great characters, and it's great losers. He may as well have been British he lost in that many semi-finals and finals. But after a rain-lashed fortnight the final against Pat Rafter spilled into Monday and the fans wearing their red and white Croatia shirts and their gold of Australia made it a colourful and memorable spectacle.

Ivanisevic getting down on his knees and praying in between match points just made the hair stand on end and when he finally clinched victory and fell to the floor in tears, a lifetime of sweat and toil just poured out of him. A fantastic moment.

2) Spain v Yugoslavia, Euro 2000 group game, Holland. "I've got a funny feeling we're going to be in for a cracker," said John Motson as this final group game kicked off. How right he was. Seven goals, end-to-end attacking and a dramatic late fightback from Spain that saw them eliminate the watching Bulgaria and progress themselves.

It was national football at its best and when Alfonso scored the winner in stoppage time, Motson screamed his name in delight at the perfect finish to a phenomenal 90 minutes.

3) Kelly Holmes, Athens Olympics, 2004. Just pips Usain Bolt in Beijing and Berlin and Great Britain's men's 4x100m relay team in Sydney, and again its like Ivanisevic in that her career before then had been plagued by injury and heartache.

Then she won the 800m Olympic final and a few days later her a late decision to take part in the 1,500m paid off as she defeated her long-time rival Maria Matulo to win the gold. The commentary from Steve Cram was another to put a lump in the throat. "Kelly Holmes, you are the double Olympic champion!"

4) Michael Phelps, 100m butterfly, Rome, 2009. One of the few I was fortunate enough to attend. The World Championships were dominated by swimmers in soon-to-be outlawed polyurethane suits who set 43 world records. Phelps, the greatest swimmer of all time, stuck to his basic speedo suit.

His great rival in the 100m butterfly was California-educated and controversial suit-wearing Milorad Cavic of Serbia, who set the blue touch paper by winning his semi-final in a quicker time and then telling the assembled media that he would beat Phelps in the final.

At 50m, the big-talking Serb led the final from Phelps, and did so with 25m to go. But the American dug into his reserves and in the space of three strokes he pipped Cavic to the line. When in that desperate full flow at the end Phelps looked like he was eating water as he bore down on Cavic.

When the race was won, Phelps turned to the packed stands at the Foro Italico and grabbed his vest, so proving his point that it's all about the swimmer and not the suit they are wearing.

5) Ernie Els wins the Open, Muirfield, 2002. If Colin Montgomerie had have found the fairway with his approach to the 72nd green at Winged Foot in 2006 and won the US Open, that would have made the top five, but as it was, the finest golf moment of the decade was Els' dramatic Open win at Muirfield.

The Big Easy led by two with five to play but as I followed his gallery over those closing holes, listening to John Inverdale jinx it by interviewing his family on my Open Golf radio, Ernie attempted to throw it away. He earned a reprieve by making birdie on the par five 17th and then he and Thomas Levet knocked out Steve Elkington and Stuart Appleby in the four-hole play-off.

Els though prevailed with a sumptuous bunker shot on the fifth extra hole, played with one foot in the bunker and his knee on the bank. I saw him hole his winning putt through the narrowest of gaps in the 10-deep gallery at the side of the green and then be embraced by a great show of sportsmanship from the graceful Frenchman.

So that's my top five, and there was plenty knocking on the door; Federer v Nadal at Wimbledon, Jonny Wilkinson's drop goal in Sydney and Europe's Ryder Cup win at the K Club.

Let me know what you think...

Leave the NFL at Wembley as a one-off

Sat in on Tom Brady's press conference in the bowels of Wembley following the NFL game on Sunday, I glanced to my left and recognised a familiar face.

Where do I know that face from? I thought. Have I seen him in the football press boxes of Yorkshire and what's he doing here at an American Football game in London?

Noticing me staring hard at him, the person in question returned the glance.

No hint of recognition on his face but it was bugging me.

I was just about to whisper - Brady was still opining to a packed hall on the Patriots' performance - if he recognised me when it finally twigged who it was and my blushes were saved.

It was Jake Humphrey, of the BBC. I had actually remembered him off the telly from far flung destinations, not the press box at Millmoor as I originally thought.

Not a chance in hell that he would know my face, the same face I had stuffed earlier with free half-time hot dogs.

I tell this story more to paint the picture of the massive appeal of American Football being played on English soil, our hallowed soil for that matter, and a meaningful regular season game to boot.

The media area at Wembley on Sunday was packed, the queue to get into the locker room to interview players was as long as a Josh Johnson hail mary and for the second season running I bypassed the chance to interview a naked nickelback in favour of hearing the coaches thoughts on their sides performance in front of 84,000 'new' fans.

Journalists from Florida, Boston and all across America had descended on our capital for what is now becoming a regular mid-season slot. There were also members of the media from across Europe, eager to catch a glimpse of one of the richest sports in the world out of its comfort zone and on their doorstep.

In Europe, the NFL's International Series is greeted with open arms from lifelong fans of the Packers, Jets and Browns, and members of the media curious to see what it's all about and gauge the merits of its appeal.

Opinion in America is divided as to its impact, with fans of those teams who have to forego a home game particularly against it. The teams themselves have to sacrifice a lot of practice time to criss-cross the Atlantic.

The American media have gone past curiosity and are now merely getting irritated and will be irked further by suggestions that there could be two games played in England next season, or the extension of the regular season from 16 to 18 games to accomodate games abroad, or even a London franchise in future years.

For me, the NFL deserve praise for the bold move to expand their game. It is a gamble that has and continues to pay off.

Expanding that however, could seriously damage its appeal and its relations. Wembley has sold out in each of the three years because there are enough knowledgable American Football fans who want to see a game every year. The stadium is also a big appeal, but even if it were Detroit Lions versus Cleveland Browns, NFL-mad UK and European fans would still flock to the game.

But a second game in the north of England, perhaps Manchester, as has been suggested for next season, would be a step too far. The setting would not be as grand, and indeed would not feel like playing in a Superbowl, as Brady likened Sunday's game to.

Plus the league would be running the risk of exposing the games to fewer fans pouring through the turnstiles. The media attention would also suffer if a rarity becomes the norm.

The NFL has a big market in Germany, Spain and Holland, where the shortlived NFL Europe was a success. Twin games in London and Berlin would work, but overloading one country with games, and testing the strength of a minority sport in one nation, would be a stretch too far.

There are too many pitfalls as well for a London franchise, in the logistics and organisation, particularly with the amount of travelling teams, fans and media would have to do. Would British fans still pay good money to see an English team full of American rejects lose to the Houston Texans each week? No way.

The NFL International Series in London has proved a roaring success and should be kept as it is - a one-off at Wembley, a rare treat for gridiron fans, and an opportunity for the sport to dominate the headlines in Europe for just a few days.

Do golf and rugby comply with Olympic ideal?

Picture the scene. The athletes village in Rio de Janeiro in the summer of 2016. The Summer Olympics are in full swing and Alistair Brownlee, a triathlete from Leeds, is in the village common room flicking through the Brazilian television channels, sat alongside Tiger Woods.

They are two of the hardest working sportsmen on the planet who have earned success in equal measure, but are a million miles apart in earnings, net worth and the amount of change they have in the pockets of their team tracksuits.

For Brownlee is an amateur sportsman, who embodies the Olympic ideal. Woods is the most famous sports person on the planet, has been for two decades, and is by a long way its richest.

He is a professional, and therefore not exactly the target audience Pierre de Coubertin had in mind when he conceived the idea of the Olympic movement back in Paris in 1894.

The Olympic ideal has changed and evolved many times in its 120-year lifetime, largely for the better in many respects.

Professional sport has long been a part of the fabric of the five rings; in the NHL players who fill the ice hockey teams at the Winter Games, and the tennis players who fly in and out to play their matches in the Summer Games. The majority of sports are now professional in an era where money is thrown at the stars who make their name at the Olympics.

Gone are the days when Jesse Owens, the most iconic Olympic hero of all time, returned to America after the 1936 Berlin Games to seek his fame and fortune only to be ostricised by the sports national governing body for turning his back on athletics' amateur roots.

The Olympics is about sport, and therefore wishes to be all encompassing, and so today passed the law that golf and rugby sevens would become part of the global extravaganza in Rio in 2016.

But what about squash, a professional sport only for the top players, that has sought to gain Olympic recognition time and again, only to be denied an invite to the biggest show on earth, with no real reason being offered to the likes of James Willstrop and Nick Matthew.

Opposing the decision of the IOC is not my purpose, golf and rugby are sports I hold dear and I believe that rugby sevens is a worthy inductee and could be managed as football is in the Olympics, with only players under the age of 23 representing their country.

Golf shares a number of ideals and morals that strike a chord with the Olympic movement, the self-regulation of the laws of the game where a player readily disqualifies himself/herself from a tournament for the merest infringement, is its most admirable quality.

However, for me, the notion of Tiger sitting with Brownlee in the Olympic village does not sit right. A man who has trained all his life for a shot at Olympic gold against a man who has won everything and needs just one more collectable for that small space at the back of his trophy cabinet.

Not that Tiger would give anything less than 100%, but will Rio be his every thought from the moment the London Games close to mark the start of the next cycle for Olympic athletes?

Probably not. I hope to be proved wrong and that golf warrants its place at the greatest sporting spectacle on earth.

Get ready for the Yorkshire Post blog revolution

Hi there blog fans - yes all four of you; mum, dad, my good friend Rob McBride and some chap I met in the mess called Bernard.

After an extended hiatus from all things blogging, myself and the rest of the Yorkshire Post sports team have decided to relaunch the blog network and will be hitting readers of the esteemed northern publication and its associated website with a three-prongued attack.

It begins with the hard-hitting Matt Reeder, sports editor extraordinaire of the desk, a veteran of World Cup final coverage and Champions League semi-finals. Matt is a multi-award winning journalist and now the director of football of Tockwith Juniors Under 7s.

Try and encourage him to blog about the time that as an impartial referee he hi-fived his son for scoring a goal. He also has a 'great' story about when he interviewed David Beckham.

Next up is Dave Craven, the Yorkshire Post's latest signing who has slipped effortlessly into the role of rugby league correspondent. It's a timely appointment I'm sure you'll admit, with the Super League season set to conclude in a little over a week!

So with four months to sit twiddling his thumbs and work his backside groove into his swivvely desk chair, what better way we thought than to fill his time by making the bugger blog about the sport he loves best.

Dave has a strange fascination with the X-Factor so look out for him boring the pants off everyone as he regales us with tales of the funny comment Louis made.

And then there's myself, who after blogging consistently last summer, somehow lost the ability to do so again. I got lost in reading and re-reading my NFL post last October which I was mightily proud of and therefore mightily miffed to learn even my dad didn't like it.

The NFL will be another of the topics I'll be covering in my weekly blog, along with the other sports I cover for the Yorkshire Post, namely, rugby union, golf, the Olympics, Formula 1, stag doo go-karting and pro-celebrity javelin throwing.

So we're all back - and we reckon we might even be able to convince ice hockey and squash reporter Phil Harrison to follow suit - admittedly without a regular time slot and date at which we will be communciating to you, but with a solemn promise that amid a world seduced by such technologies as 'Facebook', 'Twitter' and 'Statellite Television', we here at the Yorkshire Post will stay true to the pioneering world wide web phenomenon of talking rubbish, and thinking ourselves intelligent as we do so. Blogging.

Fasten your seat belts, and await further updates.

EPL should follow NFL lead

The so-called 39th Step which has had football traditionalists shaking their heads at the ever-changing face of the beautiful game into a global business was afforded an insight into how to achieve such a bold move at Wembley Stadium yesterday.

The National Football League (NFL) played its second regular season game at England’s famous venue with New Orleans Saints powering past the San Diegoe Chargers in an explosive and entertaining match in front of more than 83,000 fans.

It was a brave move by the NFL 18 months ago when it announced ahead of Superbowl XLII that the New York Giants and Miami Dolphins would play the first ever regular season game outside of the United States, taking the national game out of its comfort zone.

And it is a move that suggests to the FA and the Premier League that taking your brand into other growing markets can only enhance your product.

Even though the first installment of gridiron in Europe was a drab affair between the Dolphins and the Giants in torrential autumnal rain, it did little to dampen the spirits of the NFL’s governers who immediately set about a return to England for a second outing.

The enthusiasm of the British and European fans for the game was also strengthened by the fixture and they again marched in their thousands down Olympic Way yesterday, decked out in colours of all the 32 teams with shirts sporting names from the past like Dan Marino and future Hall of Famers like Tom Brady.

For fans of American Football on this side of the Atlantic, the Bridgestone International Series is the only chance they get to see the biggest league in the world up close.

So they do not care who plays who, what the score is or how many touchdowns are scored; all that matters is they are seeing the sport played by the best in the business, in the flesh.

And that is all that fans of ‘soccer’ and the EPL - which is the Premier League’s acronym according to our American colleagues - want to see; club football played at the highest level by the best players, in their country.

Fans in Bahrain won’t care if Stoke City are playing West Brom, the Sydney branch of the Everton Supporters Club won’t be put off by Liverpool v Hull City, and Cristiano Ronaldo worshippers in Singapore will still turn out in their thousands to see Tottenham Hotspur v Sunderland.

One solution to the 39th Step that the Premier League continue to look into, would be a seeding system for which teams are involved in which cities.

Seeding could be based on positions a team finishes in at the end of the season, ie. with the three relegated teams replaced by the three promoted teams, and the 39th Step being matches contested the following winter. First could play second with the second and third promoted teams also playing each other on one day in say Dubai.

In another city, Tokyo perhaps, third would play fourth and 17th play the winners of the Championship, and so on...

The suggestion that English fans would miss out - which continues to be one of the concerns forwarded by clubs - is ludicrous.

Loyal fans follow their team all over Europe from Paris to Moscow, Istanbul to Oslo. Why would they not support their team in a meaningful fixture in Los Angeles or Cape Town?

The Premier League could also learn from the NFL on how to make the event an occassion and not just a football match. The Stereophonics did a pre-game set at Wembley yesterday, followed by the respective national anthems being sung to help engender an atmosphere inside the stadium.

The game itself was a cracker, and exactly what the NFL powerbrokers would want from an isolated contest charged with promoting the sport.

New Orleans and San Diego conjured eight touchdowns between them, two of the game’s most exciting young quarterbacks Drew Brees and Philip Rivers threw three touchdowns apiece, and the two teams combined for a staggering 860 yards total offence.

In LaDainian Tomlinson, the San Diego Chargers running back, NFL fans in England witnessed one of the game’s greats in action, his speed of thought and movement providing some of the main highlights of the day.

Such high-power offense begs the question of what happened to the defense. Well, they were sloppy with neither quarterback troubled and coverage in the secondary sparse, although New Orleans’ linebacker Jonathan Vilma proved the exception with some key plays.

Any NFL game that goes down to the wire is going to be exciting, and the outcome of this match was still up in the air in the final second when Rivers’ hail mary into the endzone failed to find a Chargers receiver.

The Saints opened the door for their opponents with a bizarre safety which head coach Sean Payton later explained as a well-drilled practice designed at shaving seconds off the clock.

Whatever it was, it led to an exciting conclusion.

Few British fans among the 83,000 in attendance will have left Wembley feeling short-changed by the match or the event.

I for one will be going back next year, and will be in support of the Premier League if they go ahead with the bold but beneficial 39th Step.

Fingers crossed for Richard Finch and Simon Dyson

What a refreshing joy it was this afternoon (Friday) to log on to the European Tour website to find Yorkshire’s two leading golfers at the top of the leaderboard.

Richard Finch and Simon Dyson share top billing at the time of writing in the Castello Masters, the penultimate event on the 2008 European Tour schedule.

Both are amiable chaps, easy to talk with, eager to help to the press and of course dedicated and determined golfers on the course.

They have had mixed fortunes this year, Finch breaking through from relative obscurity to win in New Zealand and Ireland, while Dyson has dropped from a status among the top 25 players in Europe to the middle of the pack.

Both need a good week in Spain, Finch to secure a place in the top 30 on the Order of Merit - he is currently 19th - to earn a spot in next year’s Open, and Dyson to book a tee time at Valderrama next week for the season-ending Volvo Masters.

Dyson lost in a play-off in the same event last season, but the fact that he has not recorded a finish as strong in the following 12 months underlines his loss of form this season.

However the 31-year-old has shown glimpses of what he is capable of with some sterling rounds this year, the 65 at Sunningdale that booked his place at the Open, and Thursday’s 66 that put him two shots off the lead in Spain.

“It’s the best I’ve ever played tee to green,” he conceded. “It was nearly a perfect round.

“I gave myself a lot of chances and I didn’t ever feel there was a danger I wouldn’t make par.

“My putting was good - the greens were immaculate. I’ve been playing well all season but haven’t been putting well. I’m trying to be more positive and it’s done me some good.”

This time last year, a seventh-place finish at the Mallorca Masters - the Castello tournament’s predecessor - saw Finch, 31, break into the top 115 on the Tour and secure his card for this year.
It set in motion a memorable year that included a maiden win at the New Zealand Open, a victory at the Irish Open and then a major championship debut at Royal Birkdale.

But with success comes greater expectancy, from the media, the galleries and the player himself, and Finch has failed to live up to that tag since his triumph at Adare Manor in May.

Like Dyson he has shown glimpses of what he is capable of, particularly when he stormed to the top of the leaderboard at the Mercedes Benz Championship in Germany last month.

Fingers crossed both men can stay on top of the pile at Castello this weekend and earn their respective rewards of a top 20 spot for Finch and top 60 for Dyson, which would see him return to Valderrama next week.

So when we log on to the website on Sunday afternoon, we’ll find Finch playing Dyson in a play-off for the title.