DAVID HOWELL

Scottie Scheffl er wins the WGC Match Play Championship and gains enough points to be crowned World No.1. Since winning his fi rst PGA TOUR event in February at the Waste Management Phoenix Open, he’s won three out of his last fi ve starts!

No one gets to the top without deserving to, and our new number one is the hottest player in the game right now, his match play victory sealing the deal in Austin Texas in fi ne style. It’s hard to compute that just a few months ago Scottie was still winless as he made his Ryder Cup debut, that seems an awful long time ago I’m sure, to this now prolifi c winner of golf tournaments.

Confi dence is the key

Confi dence is everything in golf and winning is the ultimate confi dence booster, I’m sure his Ryder Cup heroics at Whistling Straits added a layer of belief to what was already an incredibly strong game and the result of that is a game that over the last couple of months has quite simply been breathtaking.

Clearly or might I say sadly I have no insight as to what it feels like to be the best player in the world so I can only imagine, but I would think it is a double edged sword, one of complete and utter confi dence in knowing that if you just play your game you are better than anyone, but also tinged with a burden of responsibility, in feeling like you are having to continuously prove it. Of course, the reality is that the number one player has nothing to prove at all, quite simply it’s just your scores over a period of time that cement your place in the eco system of the game. You needn’t look like the number one, you needn’t speak like the number one, you just have to put the scores on the board, and that is why golf is such a great game. If I may take the opportunity to say it, Scottie, well done sir, you are the world’s best player, good on you.

Blandy making waves

Another who’s scores have done the talking over the last two years is my old pal Richard Bland, once again making a splash on the biggest stage by making it through to the last 16 on his match play debut. Much has been written about Blandy as I know him over the last few months, and I wouldn’t put anything past him right now. Every challenge that comes along since his British Masters victory he has taken in his stride and gotten stronger with every shot. Frustratingly his quest to make the fi eld at the Masters has fallen just short, with one opportunity left this week to force his way into the fi rst major of the year I wouldn’t put anything past him. Age really is just a number, Richard is proving that on a weekly basis, I don’t see anything but continued improvement for the oldest bigtime rookie in golf.

Ice Man crowned captain

Earlier this month It was an honour for me to sit on the panel that selected Henrik Stenson as captain for next year’s European Ryder cup team. Strangely when Henrik made his debut in the competition in 2006 it was in partnership with me on a blustery Friday afternoon at the K Club. I like to think that some of my golf that day has helped Henrik on his march to the very top of the game, he certainly got to play from some unusual spots on the course courtesy of my tee shots that day.

I hope I left Henrik with one piece of sensible advice that he can pass onto his team in Italy next year for the foursomes matches, it was that one should never say sorry to one’s team mate no matter where you have just put him. I said this to the ice man on the way to the fi rst tee fearing I may have a few loose ones in my locker that day, which proved correct as it happens. Still, we gained a half point, and Henrik’s Ryder cup journey had begun and what a journey it has been. Let’s hope he can fi nish it off with an inspiring victory for our boys in

Rome, underdogs we may be but that’s just how we have always liked it, and it is from that standpoint that some of our greatest victories have come to bear. I simply say good luck and enjoy the greatest honour that golf at this time can give.

Lastly, I love the look of the changes at Augusta for this year, the eleventh hole specially looks like it has gone back to how it once was with room down the right once again, opening the angle to the green up. How great it is that the one Major to be played at the same venue each year has such an open mind to change, it gets the juices fl owing just thinking about it, not long now till the Augusta colours fi ll our screens once more, I can’t wait. ■