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22 shares 2 View comments Can you name the Englishman who finished second behind Rory McIlroy at last year’s US PGA Championship at Kiawah Island? Try that one out on your mates and relish the puzzled looks as their cries of Lee Westwood, Justin Rose, Luke Donald and Ian Poulter are duly rejected in turn. In fact, the man who ran McIlroy closest, albeit a distant eight shots adrift, was David Lynn, playing not only in his first American major but his first US event full stop. Dress code: David Lynn has certainly embraced Ian Poulter's trouser collection above all else       More from Derek Lawrenson...   DEREK LAWRENSON: Plucky Pepperell is well worth his salt after stellar show at Wentworth 27/05/13   World of Golf: Proof that the Rory rumour mill can drive any journalist mad...

1 shares 6 View comments So what happens when golfing tribes go to war? Following the decision of the United States tour to throw down a gauntlet and take on the governing bodies regarding anchoring clubs, we are about to find out. Given what is at stake for the parties, it is hard to see how this can end amicably. Either one side will be forced into a humiliating climbdown or the US Tour will go their own way. Whatever scenario unfolds, there will be plenty of bruised egos. Wrong? Adam Scott is one of the most high profile players who uses the technique of anchoring his putter       More from Derek Lawrenson...   DEREK LAWRENSON: Plucky Pepperell is well worth his salt after stellar show at Wentworth 27/05/13   World of Golf: Proof that the Rory rumour mill can drive any journalist m

9 shares 2 View comments So what face will the best golfer in the world present tomorrow when he re-emerges into public life for the first time since setting off the storm that has become 'McIl-gate?' Bruised and embittered from the experience, will he take the advice of Tiger Woods and learn to say nothing? It’s certainly an option for the future, one practised by Woods and a number of other leading sportsmen. But, in this period when he’s  getting advice from all quarters, here’s mine for what it’s worth as the longest-standing member of the travelling British press corps: in Rory’s case, it would be a horrendous mistake. Plenty to ponder: McIlroy has endured a tumultuous start to 2013     More from Derek Lawrenson...   DEREK LAWRENSON: Plucky Pepperell is well worth his salt after stellar show at Wentworth

9 shares 2 View comments Reading some of the reports coming out of America on Monday they might just as well skip the tournament part of the Masters next month and head straight to the green-jacket ceremony. Why bother with 72 holes when Tiger Woods is back on the prowl, ready to return to the old majors routine and claim his 15th to pull within three of Jack Nicklaus? To be fair, Tiger’s most impressive win for five years at the WGC-Cadillac Championship on Sunday — and a putting display that recalled all those final rounds when he never looked like missing — encouraged past feelings of omnipotence. But they ignored one vital fact. Tiger won’t win the Masters playing like he did at Doral. Or rather, he won’t win driving the ball like he did at Doral. Hype: Tiger Woods seems set for Masters success according to the American press There is a reason why he hasn’t won at Augusta National since 2005 and that’s because the course has been lengthened to the point where

3 shares 1 View comments Seven years on and he still thinks about his ‘what if?’ moment. What if, at the 17th, he hadn’t three putted from three feet for the only time in his professional career? What if his 12-foot putt on the last hadn’t defied all the laws of nature and stayed above ground?  Collapse: Greg Owen suffered misfortune at the 17th and 18th holes back in 2006 Chances are, if fate and fortune had combined more favourably  during that fateful last half-hour at the 2006 Arnold Palmer Invitational, Englishman Greg Owen would be making the 15-minute drive from his Orlando residence this week not only as a former champion but a multi-tournament winner. Instead, the 41-year-old from  Nottinghamshire is still awaiting his first victory in the land he now calls home. A living drama gets written every Sunday on the PGA Tour, whereby  a winner gets feted, a loser gets  consoled and the whole circus moves on. But some players don’t move  on, or not without some

6 shares 0 View comments Given odds of 50-50, most of us would surely err on the side of caution. Not so the PGA Tour. Odds of 50-50 that a vicious storm could come through mid-afternoon and wreck the end of a prestigious tournament? Egged on by their paymasters — the big television stations who hate it when tee-times are brought forward and they have to show the action by tape-delay — they take their chances every time. The wisdom of this stance, or rather palpable lack of it, was brought into sharp focus on Sunday when a meteorologist working for the local TV station Channel 6, whose daughter was working as a volunteer at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, told her not to go because the risk of dangerous weather was too high. Chaos: Bay Hill was hit hard by a storm on Sunday, leading to a delayed Monday finish Damage: Spectators were forced to take cover as high winds and heavy rain lashed the course

11 shares 3 View comments Rory McIlroy isn’t the only big name playing in the Valero Texas Open this week on the advice of his caddie. Ian Poulter has also decided to change his routine before Augusta after a scouting report from his bagman Terry Mundy flagged up a tight, strategic course that plays to the Englishman’s strengths. ‘I’ve never played the week prior to the Masters before but I’ve only played three events so far this year so it feels like a perfect fit,’ explained Poulter. While McIlroy has frantically added this event because he feels rusty, Poulter is relaxed about his similarly light schedule. It comes after his experience this time last year, when he paid for a few months of hectic travelling by contracting pneumonia that left him flat on his back for a fortnight. Playing to his strengths: Ian Poulter is now planning a pre-Masters tune-up at the Texas Open Time out: McIlroy was watching NBA basketball with former San Antonio Spurs forward B