From the rough: PGA Blues

Not only is the USPGA Championship my least favourite major, but it?s also my least favourite golf event. In terms of appeal, it comes some considerable way behind my club?s February Mid-Week Stableford, the television rights for which, incidentally, are surprisingly still available.

One of the many criticisms I have of the USPGA is that it?s held in the United States of America, which of course also hosts the Masters and the US Open. Quite how the Yanks get away with it, I honestly don?t know. It?s perhaps something that the United Nations should investigate.

Whoever arranges these things, presumably a committee, invariably selects a particularly unpleasant and steamy corner of the country that will be especially inhospitable in the middle of August. It would appear that the qualities they look for in prospective venues are a combination of reliably hot weather and particularly high humidity. Thunderstorms, I understand, are regarded as a bit of a bonus and there must have been considerable disappointment felt in some quarters that none materialised this year.

On the bright side, however, we saw the temperatures comfortably in excess of 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Together with the humidity, this ensured that every player perspired profusely and we were treated to the unedifying spectacle of huge damp patches under every armpit, on the front and back of every shirt and around the seat area of most trousers. Can it be very long before a massive sponsorship deal is secured and it?s in future to be known as, ?The Right Guard USPGA Championship??

No one suffered more than poor Tiger, who was rarely seen not wiping himself down with a huge, white, bath towel. Nike missed a trick, or do I mean ?tick?, by not plastering their logo all over the towels, which received more TV exposure than all the European players put together. Did Tiger?s bag have a special linen cupboard incorporated into it? For those of us who play golf precisely because it?s one of the few sports where you normally don?t have to break sweat, it was particularly perplexing. Oh well, we?ve 12 months to cool down before going through it all again. Where?s the next one, Death Valley?