THE NEW WORLD TOUR

The Race to Dubai may be a departure from tradition, but it is responsible for elevating the European Tour to a genuine World Tour, relegating the American PGA Tour to second best. The absence of Woods, Mickleson and co. in no way detracted from the performance of Westwood, who has suddenly developed an aura of invincibility once worn exclusively by Woods. In fact, a prospective European Ryder Cup side now looks far stronger in depth to the best 12 players available to the Americans, which could well be the situation for many years to come. To me, the only downside to a week’s feast of golf was the failure of the European Tour hierarchy to promote Darren Clarke and Stephen Dodd, who finished 61st and 62nd respectively in the Race to Dubai, to fill the two spaces vacated by the withdrawals of Paul Casey and Anthony Kim. They deserved better and this departure from the Tour’s norm of promoting reserves to fill spaces left by withdrawals, seems unnecessary and insensitive to say the least.

Tags: Dubai, European Tour, PGA Tour, Ryder Cup