Four weeks prior to the Andalucian Masters, an altogether bigger worldwide audience will be watching the Ryder Cup at Celtic Manor.
Speculation continues to rage – and a certain amount of sniggering still goes on – about just how bad the weather might be and what effect it will have on golf’s greatest showpiece. Well, the gloom and doomers might be right and it could be cold and wet and foggy and it might take an extra day to see who’s victorious. So what? We’ve had fog delays in places like Dubai and we recently had play stopped because of wind and rain in the Arizona desert so a bit of rain and fog at Celtic Manor is hardly going to be something new. All I’ll say is that having been on the course filming on a peaceful winter’s day at the end of last year, I looked around the natural amphitheatre created by the valley and imagined the roars of the galleries on different holes and felt confident that Celtic Manor and its owner Sir Terry Matthews might just have the last laugh.