Protect what's most valuable

The extremely unfortunate news of Paul Casey dislocating his shoulder, resulting in an untimely lay-off, and the ensuing debate on Twitter, got me quite cross (grr - how very British) about the 'avoidable injury'.

Nailing my colours to the mast

As 2011 emits its dying breaths and shudders to a wintry close, I thought I would offer up some predictions for the golfing year in 2012. Clearly there is huge scope for these to be wildly inaccurate (and rest assured I won't follow up any of these with a monetary commitment) but hopefully they are of interest and spark some debate.

Didn't he do well? Alvaro, that is...

Amid all the hyperbole, chatter and general noise surrounding Luke Donald's remarkable achievement, it is very easy to forget there were two players who actually scored better than the World #1 and pond-straddling money list winner.

What Luke really meant...

Apparently, we are meant to swallow the headlines that world #1 Luke Donald believes Rory McIlroy to have more talent that Tiger Woods. Did he actually say that? His later clarifications would imply that his remarks were taken out of context (shock - when doesn't this happen?!) but the undertones of his gamesmanship are designed to unsettle the pretender to his European Tour crown.

Old guard aren't finished yet...

As weekends of golf go, that one was ok. Not bad. Quite interesting.

Three tournaments reached their conclusion at various times yesterday and whilst there was a win for a member of the next generation of golfing superstars, two of the elder statesmen showed they're not quite ready to hand the baton over.

My Dream 18

I thought I would put together a 'dream 18' of holes I have played which, given artistic licence on the laws of physics and geography, would make the perfect course. These are not in any particular order either.

100 up with a smile

Sunday's round at Worplesdon Golf Club, the scene of a heart-wrenching final-hole defeat by Moggers and Nick, took me to a personal milestone of 100 UK golf courses played.

Fred Couples - the can teetered, wobbled but didn't fall over

Prior to the start of last week's Presidents Cup, the Ryder-Cup-but-without-the-media-coverage-or-the-competitive-intensity, I wrote about how Fred Couples had risked dropping a massive clanger by taking Tiger Woods and Bill Haas as his captain's picks, leaving the in-form and luckless Keegan Bradley to watch the event unfold on TV at home.

Golfing goals for 2012

2011 seems to have flown by and there are now about seven weeks of the year left, so my mind started to wander towards the golfing goals I want to set myself for 2012.

Fred Couples and the can of worms

I can't really remember (not that it really matters) how long its been since US Presidents Cup skipper Fred Couples made his announcement that Tiger Woods would be one of his wildcard selections for the forthcoming match against Greg Norman's Australian, sorry International, team at Royal Melbourne.