What do you think when you hear the word unsportsmanlike? Do you think of someone that hasn’t played football like a Gary Linekar or raced a car like a Damon Hill? If you do then I have to ask why on earth you think that? What do you think a modern day sportsman represents? Riches, fame, woman, performance enhancing drugs and a bending of the rules that borders on the cheating depending on who you ask. Therefore would you not say that being “unsportsmanlike” would have you being the kind of upstanding competitor that we wish we had more of but know we’ll never get enough of because nice guys finish last? Just this week we seen some horrific unsportsmanlike behavior from a 14-year old kid Golfer.

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I like Golf. I like watching it. But not even I, or the most adamant fan could have foreseen the drama that was set to unfold on the final holes of Whistling Straits at the PGA Championship on Sunday evening. Martin Kaymer of Germany went home with the title after a dramatic two man, three hole playoff that seen Bubba Watson go into meltdown on the final hole of the three putting a shot in the drink and firing another over the green and into deep rough. Yet it was the incident that made it a two man playoff, rather than three, involving Dustin Johnson that stole the drama and created the serious levels of controversy that normally doesn’t exist in a round of golf.

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This time last year Tiger Woods was by far the best player on the planet, he was winning in Golf and he was mister nice guy. Then about nine months ago everything changed and ever since that fateful Thanksgiving day evening outside his Florida home, his world has come crumbling down in the most dramatic fashion. His private life has been put in turmoil and his golfing game has seemingly left him completely. This weekend, Tiger is perhaps playing the worst golfing game of his career confirming thoughts that Tiger is far from ready to bounce back from everything that has went on and if anything, things are getting worse. After losing his wife, his image and his ability to dominate golfing tournaments, Tiger is on the verge of losing his world number one ranking to Phil Mickelson.

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On Thursday morning if you’d have asked me who Louis Oosthuizen was my guesses would have ranged from the bar man at the local to some obscure player on the professional Golf scene. That second guess would have been right, but by Sunday he suddenly elevated himself from obscure golf pro to the winner of The Open. On Thursday, few even knew how to pronounce his name, now it’s enshrined in Golf history. The South African golfer made just two bogeys over the final 35 holes of play in strong winds to capture golfs biggest prize by an impressive seven shots on the day of Nelson Mandela’s 92nd birthday.

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Prior to the beginning of this years Open Championship, Rory McIlroy claimed that he had never shot a round in the 70’s at St. Andrews … he still hasn’t, but there’s a twist… Read More»

He may have an awful mid-atlantic accent but Graeme McDowell is still one of us … a Ulsterman, and with his victory this weekend at Pebble Beach in the US Open were he became the first European to win the event for 40 years, he penned himself in as Northern Ireland’s sportsman of the year. All he needs to do now is regain his Northern Ireland accent before his acceptance speech. It’s McDowell’s first major championship and he was the man who wanted to throw it away least out of the main contenders by the time all was said and done on Sunday evening. In a tournament that seen a collapse from overnight leader Dustin Johnson (+11), as well as an uninspiring round by Tiger Woods (+4) just as he looked to be finding his best form on the Saturday, McDowell (+3) hung tough and finished as the only man on par for the tournament on what was clearly a very tough course.

Perhaps asking what has gone wrong is a silly question, I think we all know why Tiger’s Golf game is not in tip top shape but regardless of what happens away from the Golf course, it is still a huge shock when actually misses the cut of a competition which is what happened at the Quail Hollow Championship in Charlotte, North Carolina yesterday. It’s only the sixth time in his career he has missed the cut but this one might have been the worst of all. He shot a 79, the worst score on American soil as a pro and the second-highest of his illustrious career. Woods only hit two fairways and none after the forth hole. He missed the cut by eight shots and was 17 shots behind the leader after two rounds of play, Billy Mayfair. (Don’t worry, I haven’t heard of him either).

“It is what it is,” moaned Tiger. “Whatever it was, it wasn’t good enough.” You can say that again. The pressure is really on Tiger now, not just with all the off course stuff still lingering in every press conference because next week he plays in the more prestigious Players Championship and tournament that he has finished out of the top 20 more often than any other tournament. Saying that, if anyone can bounce back it is Tiger but there is no doubt something is missing from his game still and the time away coupled with the problems that had kept him away have clearly hurt his game somewhat.