Jim Furyk

Carded a 59 in the BMW tournament today,only the 6th player in PGA history to do so.Not bad,still don't think he'd stand a chance against Plympton Pilgrim or myself though.

Absolutely. With that swing he can't be much good.

Like an Octopus falling out of a tree,as someone once said.The interesting point about Furyk is that he only ever had one teacher-his old man,who was/is a highly qualified PGA coach.Probably he best bit of coaching he ever did was to leave that swing well alone when Jim was a nipper and not try to alter it in any way.I've often thought that coaching in this country is biased towards straitjacketed orthodoxy-can't really imagine people like Muralitharan,Maradona or even Pietersen surviving the system over here,their "faults" would have been the main focus of the coaches rather than their strengths.Not saying that textbook type players can't be successful of course,just that there is room for both-a certain Don Bradman gripped the bat and lifted it in entirely the "wrong" way and he seemed to do OK.

I watch a bit'of boxing and Mayweather always strikes me as someone who isn't what you'd think of as a boxer - he doesn't get hit. I can imagine some snaggle toothed local old boxing trainer at a boys club over here telling him to get stuck in. It took Murray to get a foreign coach before he became World Class - his coach told him to bulk up and he's now on a par with the top seeds. I don't really watch golf much but are there any up and coming English pros? The last one I heard of was Justin Rose but he's getting on now isn't he?

He's a thoroughly nice chap too. There was an horrendous 6hour weather delay on the Friday of the 2010 Ryder Cup at Celtic Manor, and he came down from the players lounge and was chatting to a group of us for about 10 minutes. I think that may have been the year he won the FedEx Cup and the rediculous prize fund of about $10m that goes with it. A really nice unassuming guy.

Eee's got some nose on him. Wouldn't mind it full of 50p pieces.

hairy j wrote:

I watch a bit'of boxing and Mayweather always strikes me as someone who isn't what you'd think of as a boxer - he doesn't get hit. I can imagine some snaggle toothed local old boxing trainer at a boys club over here telling him to get stuck in. It took Murray to get a foreign coach before he became World Class - his coach told him to bulk up and he's now on a par with the top seeds. I don't really watch golf much but are there any up and coming English pros? The last one I heard of was Justin Rose but he's getting on now isn't he?

I haven't heard of any real outstanding English or British talent coming through, obviously there will be a few that make it as pro's without being superstars, but nobody that is being hailed as the next Tiger Woods.

In the States there is Jordan Spieth who is only 20 and has already won on the PGA Tour and had 8 top ten finishes. He's won over $3 million dollars and has won me a few quid backing him each way  

Now he looks like he could be something pretty special but it's hard to say in golf as there are probably 50-75 golfers who could realistically win any tournament and plenty of golfers who just keep grinding away picking up prize money every week and are quite happy doing that rather than perhaps targeting the majors. I would think that he will win a major in the next 5 years which sounds a lot but is only 20 tournaments with the 50-75 possible winners in.

Golfers can have really great starts to their career and then disappear relatively but come back years later and start winning again. Adam Scott was going to be the next big thing but then faded away for a few years and now is a major champion. Steve Stricker is another who has done the same and Justin Rose who went close to winning The Open as an amateur, immediately turned pro and then struggled for a couple of years. I think he missed the cut in 50+ tournaments before whatever he was doing wrong got fixed and now he's a major winner and in the worlds top ten.

In women's golf the Asians have started to dominate. Mainly South Koreans who have 5 of the top ten ranked women golfers, and Chinese which will only get more so as it gets more and more coverage over there. I doubt it will be too long before the Chinese are dominating the men's game too simply due to weight of numbers.