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.


Masters - April

I am reasonably confident that 2012 will struggle to match the excitement and interest that encompassed last year's Masters - Tiger running out of puff, Adam Scott looking like he would win it before Charl Schwartzel's magnificent closing stretch. Oh, and some chap called McIlroy having a nightmare. 

On a seemingly perennial basis, the top golfers in Europe (and particularly the UK) are talked up ahead of the opening major of the year and the prospects of each are widely debated & I can guarantee that 2012 will be no exception. In the last couple of years Lee Westwood and Luke Donald have, unsurprisingly, been the leading challengers to break the barren spell for Europe. The question, therefore, is what will happen this year?

My pick for the Masters is someone who may well be slightly off the mainstream radar but whose performances at the majors in 2011 and at the Presidents Cup demonstrates that he is a serious contender - Australia's Jason Day. 

US Open - June

The US Open returns to the Olympic Club in San Francisco which last held the tournament in 1998 when Lee Janzen took the title with an even par score. Clearly the 2011 US Open is one which will live fondly in the memory for UK golf fans, as that lad McIlroy produced some half-decent golf to piss all over the rest of the field and the USGA's much-vaunted plan that this event is the toughest test.

Norn Iron have enjoyed a mini-dominance of this event with Graeme McDowell's win at Pebble Beach in 2010 and I have a sneaking suspicion that this may continue. Not since Curtis Strange in 1988 & 1989 has anyone successfully defended their US Open title but, by taking up full membership of the PGA Tour I feel Rory McIlroy will do just that. I think the course will suit his game and if the weather is favourable to him as it was in Maryland, he'll be a happier camper than he was at Royal St Georges.

The Open - July


The Open Championship returns to Royal Lytham & St Annes for 2012, the least impressive of the three Golf Coast venues on the Open rota & the scene of David Duval's last career victory in 2001. Obviously, nothing is going to match the romantic story of Ulsterman Darren Clarke's victory at Royal St Georges and, I fear, the wait for a British winner will continue in 2012.

This time, I feel the long and drawn-out return to form and fitness of Tiger Woods will be too much for a lot of the field but, with the unpredictability of the British 'summer', I'm not sure he will be quite there yet. For me, the sterling performance he put in at Royal St Georges proved that he can cope with the extremes that Mother Nature will put out there so my pick is Rickie Fowler.

US PGA - August


The final major of the year will wing its merry way to Kiawah Island, SC this time out, scene of the War on the Shore in 1991 and making its debut as a PGA Championship venue. This event has a history of throwing up unexpected winners and generating a perception as the weakest of the major championships.

No-one would have predicted that rookie Keegan Bradley would come out on top in 2011 (let alone in a playoff against Jason Dufner) or the ferocious media storm this would create further down the line in the lead up to the Presidents Cup. Previous to that, YE Yang tipped a can of worms over Tiger Woods' aura of invincibility in 2009, Shaun Micheel & Rich Beem briefly peeped over the barricades of obscurity in 2003 and 2002, whilst golf's original loose cannon, John Daly, rocked up at Crooked Stick in 1991 as ninth reserve before trundling to his first tour win.

I have a feeling that the course layout will be key to who takes the title in 2012 - the length and links style to Kiawah Island will rule out a number of possible contenders so the winner will need to have prodigious length off the tee to put himself in the best possible positions to score well.

Alvaro Quiros is probably the leading European in terms of distance off the tee but, as he showed in Dubai last week, the distance he generates can often be as much sideways as it is forwards. Gary Woodland is another player who can give the ball a hefty slap but, in my opinion, the experience of competing at the sharp end of this tournament will serve Dustin Johnson very well indeed, so he is my pick.

Ryder Cup - September


In 2011, the golfing world experienced the Ryder-Cup-but-without-the-media-coverage when the European ladies took home the Solheim Cup, followed by the Ryder-Cup-but-without-the-competitive-intensity when Fred Couples' US team beat the Internationals, captained by Greg Norman, in the Presidents Cup. These events have served to whet the appetite for the team golf event, taking place at Medinah Country Club, Illinois.

The European victory at Celtic Manor was one of the most unforgettable sporting occasions and one which will live long in the memories of those who took part. Players from both sides will draw inspiration from what happened, positive & negative, personally and to the team, as the race to qualify for 2012 hots up.

With nine players in the current OWGR top 20, Europe is still very much in a period of dominance. That is not to say the US challenge doesn't exist and I am sure that, given the nature of the OWGR, there will be plenty of US players involved in the upper reaches of the rankings as September draws nearer.

Overall, I feel the US are going to need to draw on players from further down the rankings than the Europeans (although picking from outside the top 50 didn't do Couples any harm) and, coupled with the vast Ryder Cup experience of captain Jose Maria Olazabal, I believe the European challenge will be too strong for the Americans. The margin will be as close as it was at Celtic Manor with the singles matches again proving to be the key but Europe will win.

Cheeky bet for the player to hole the winning putt? Mr Ryder Cup and simply the best matchplay golfer in the world - Ian Poulter.

World Rankings


Probably the area that is hardest to predict, given the outwardly convoluted and complicated nature of the rankings system. That said, taking a little time to study the set up and understand how points are won & lost, means it's not as difficult as you might think.

The rankings are determined by a player's Points Average (the total points divided by the number of events played). The points available varies event by event (majors are worth the most; unsanctioned events worth the least) and the accruing of points is offset by the removal of points gained two years earlier. This explains why a) Tiger Woods went down quicker than Divine Brown and b) Luke Donald has had a seemingly meteoric rise - it all depends what was happening two years ago.

Currently, Luke Donald has a comfortable lead. Nothing like the margin that Woods enjoyed before the wheels came off in late 2009, of course, but it's still pretty tidy. I have even seen written a list of what Tiger Woods has to win in order to return to the summit of the rankings but, unsurprisingly, that assumes that Luke Donald loses the ability to play golf or decides to take a year out!

Lee Westwood, with his stunning end to the season in Thailand, clearly has designs on the #1 position but, unfortunately for him, so does Rory McIlroy. The top three in the world will be going head-to-head on the PGA Tour in 2012 so it will be interesting to see how that pans out and, particularly, how many lucrative jaunts to Asia can be squeezed into Westwood's schedule. My pick to take the #1 ranking at the end of the year, following his win at the US Open and undoubtedly a fine season in the States, is Rory McIlroy.

So there you are - gazing into my crystal ball those are my headline predictions for the golfing year to come.



I am the Part-Time Golfer.