Dateline: Europe

Filed in archive Golf News on May 28, 2007

Courtesy: AFP

The same day that heavy rains delayed the finish of the Crowne Plaza Invitational in Forth Worth, Texas, thousands of miles to the east, heavy rain made conditions difficult at the PGA Championship in Wentworth, England.

Danish golfer, Anders Hansen beat England's Justin Rose in a playoff to secure the title at the prestigious European event. Vijay Singh finished in a tie for second.

Now here's something that will catch your attention.

Some may recall a pair of young girls carrying the Ryder Cup onto the stage for the presentation ceremony at last year's Ryder Cup in Ireland.

Those two girls are sisters. Identical twins, in fact. And outstanding golfers.

Lisa Maguire and her sister Leona, a fine pair of Irish lasses, are just 12 years old.

Last year, at age 11, Lisa won the under-12 world title at Pinehurst while her sister finished third. Lisa beat out 800 competitors from 30 countries to secure the world title.

She's only been playing the game for about 3 years but at Pinehurst, she fired rounds of 68, 68 and a final 64 to secure the world title by five shots on the field!

Nothing short of amazing.

But equally amazing is the fact that the two sisters will compete in next week's Northern Ireland Ladies Open, one of the events on the European LPGA Tour!

They qualified by reaching the semi-finals of last week's Irish Amateur Close Championship.

The daily telegraph newspaper in Great Britain is reporting that European PGA Tour CEO, George O'Grady is intent on creating a tour that will rival the PGA in the United States.

O'Grady says he wants to build "a hugely strong alternative to the US Tour".

The strength for this new "super-tour" will come from the Asian, Japanese, Australian and South African tours which are all apparently interested in joining forces with the European PGA, according to the Telegraph.

What's the purpose of such a tour? According to O'Grady, it's because the PGA has done too good a job of luring the top European players across the Atlantic and the Euro tour wants them back home or at least back home more often.

Certainly, the top European players chose the PGA Championship at Wentworth this week rather than the Crowne Plaza at Colonial.
The new European super tour is intent on creating or wooing some of the World Golf Championship events that are all U.S.-based this year, says O'Grady.

Creating more high-profile tournaments seems like a good idea on the surface. But saturation is always a threat.

Even the Fed-Ex Cup storyline has its fair share of detractors and it's strictly a PGA Tour phenomenon.

Here's the ideal: one global tour with world headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, preferably next door to the International Olympic Committee HQ.

That way the golf honchos could push face-to-face with the IOC to make golf an Olympic sport.

And Switzerland, of course, is neutral.