EPL should follow NFL lead

The so-called 39th Step which has had football traditionalists shaking their heads at the ever-changing face of the beautiful game into a global business was afforded an insight into how to achieve such a bold move at Wembley Stadium yesterday.

The National Football League (NFL) played its second regular season game at England’s famous venue with New Orleans Saints powering past the San Diegoe Chargers in an explosive and entertaining match in front of more than 83,000 fans.

It was a brave move by the NFL 18 months ago when it announced ahead of Superbowl XLII that the New York Giants and Miami Dolphins would play the first ever regular season game outside of the United States, taking the national game out of its comfort zone.

And it is a move that suggests to the FA and the Premier League that taking your brand into other growing markets can only enhance your product.

Even though the first installment of gridiron in Europe was a drab affair between the Dolphins and the Giants in torrential autumnal rain, it did little to dampen the spirits of the NFL’s governers who immediately set about a return to England for a second outing.

The enthusiasm of the British and European fans for the game was also strengthened by the fixture and they again marched in their thousands down Olympic Way yesterday, decked out in colours of all the 32 teams with shirts sporting names from the past like Dan Marino and future Hall of Famers like Tom Brady.

For fans of American Football on this side of the Atlantic, the Bridgestone International Series is the only chance they get to see the biggest league in the world up close.

So they do not care who plays who, what the score is or how many touchdowns are scored; all that matters is they are seeing the sport played by the best in the business, in the flesh.

And that is all that fans of ‘soccer’ and the EPL - which is the Premier League’s acronym according to our American colleagues - want to see; club football played at the highest level by the best players, in their country.

Fans in Bahrain won’t care if Stoke City are playing West Brom, the Sydney branch of the Everton Supporters Club won’t be put off by Liverpool v Hull City, and Cristiano Ronaldo worshippers in Singapore will still turn out in their thousands to see Tottenham Hotspur v Sunderland.

One solution to the 39th Step that the Premier League continue to look into, would be a seeding system for which teams are involved in which cities.

Seeding could be based on positions a team finishes in at the end of the season, ie. with the three relegated teams replaced by the three promoted teams, and the 39th Step being matches contested the following winter. First could play second with the second and third promoted teams also playing each other on one day in say Dubai.

In another city, Tokyo perhaps, third would play fourth and 17th play the winners of the Championship, and so on...

The suggestion that English fans would miss out - which continues to be one of the concerns forwarded by clubs - is ludicrous.

Loyal fans follow their team all over Europe from Paris to Moscow, Istanbul to Oslo. Why would they not support their team in a meaningful fixture in Los Angeles or Cape Town?

The Premier League could also learn from the NFL on how to make the event an occassion and not just a football match. The Stereophonics did a pre-game set at Wembley yesterday, followed by the respective national anthems being sung to help engender an atmosphere inside the stadium.

The game itself was a cracker, and exactly what the NFL powerbrokers would want from an isolated contest charged with promoting the sport.

New Orleans and San Diego conjured eight touchdowns between them, two of the game’s most exciting young quarterbacks Drew Brees and Philip Rivers threw three touchdowns apiece, and the two teams combined for a staggering 860 yards total offence.

In LaDainian Tomlinson, the San Diego Chargers running back, NFL fans in England witnessed one of the game’s greats in action, his speed of thought and movement providing some of the main highlights of the day.

Such high-power offense begs the question of what happened to the defense. Well, they were sloppy with neither quarterback troubled and coverage in the secondary sparse, although New Orleans’ linebacker Jonathan Vilma proved the exception with some key plays.

Any NFL game that goes down to the wire is going to be exciting, and the outcome of this match was still up in the air in the final second when Rivers’ hail mary into the endzone failed to find a Chargers receiver.

The Saints opened the door for their opponents with a bizarre safety which head coach Sean Payton later explained as a well-drilled practice designed at shaving seconds off the clock.

Whatever it was, it led to an exciting conclusion.

Few British fans among the 83,000 in attendance will have left Wembley feeling short-changed by the match or the event.

I for one will be going back next year, and will be in support of the Premier League if they go ahead with the bold but beneficial 39th Step.

Fingers crossed for Richard Finch and Simon Dyson

What a refreshing joy it was this afternoon (Friday) to log on to the European Tour website to find Yorkshire’s two leading golfers at the top of the leaderboard.

Richard Finch and Simon Dyson share top billing at the time of writing in the Castello Masters, the penultimate event on the 2008 European Tour schedule.

Both are amiable chaps, easy to talk with, eager to help to the press and of course dedicated and determined golfers on the course.

They have had mixed fortunes this year, Finch breaking through from relative obscurity to win in New Zealand and Ireland, while Dyson has dropped from a status among the top 25 players in Europe to the middle of the pack.

Both need a good week in Spain, Finch to secure a place in the top 30 on the Order of Merit - he is currently 19th - to earn a spot in next year’s Open, and Dyson to book a tee time at Valderrama next week for the season-ending Volvo Masters.

Dyson lost in a play-off in the same event last season, but the fact that he has not recorded a finish as strong in the following 12 months underlines his loss of form this season.

However the 31-year-old has shown glimpses of what he is capable of with some sterling rounds this year, the 65 at Sunningdale that booked his place at the Open, and Thursday’s 66 that put him two shots off the lead in Spain.

“It’s the best I’ve ever played tee to green,” he conceded. “It was nearly a perfect round.

“I gave myself a lot of chances and I didn’t ever feel there was a danger I wouldn’t make par.

“My putting was good - the greens were immaculate. I’ve been playing well all season but haven’t been putting well. I’m trying to be more positive and it’s done me some good.”

This time last year, a seventh-place finish at the Mallorca Masters - the Castello tournament’s predecessor - saw Finch, 31, break into the top 115 on the Tour and secure his card for this year.
It set in motion a memorable year that included a maiden win at the New Zealand Open, a victory at the Irish Open and then a major championship debut at Royal Birkdale.

But with success comes greater expectancy, from the media, the galleries and the player himself, and Finch has failed to live up to that tag since his triumph at Adare Manor in May.

Like Dyson he has shown glimpses of what he is capable of, particularly when he stormed to the top of the leaderboard at the Mercedes Benz Championship in Germany last month.

Fingers crossed both men can stay on top of the pile at Castello this weekend and earn their respective rewards of a top 20 spot for Finch and top 60 for Dyson, which would see him return to Valderrama next week.

So when we log on to the website on Sunday afternoon, we’ll find Finch playing Dyson in a play-off for the title.

Ryder Cup captaincy should return to Ian Woosnam

Passion doesn’t necessarily win you a Ryder Cup, but it goes a long way.

America had it at Valhalla, had it in bucketfulls, embodied by the energised rookies Boo Weekley, Anthony Kim and JB Holmes.

Europe used to have exclusive rights to Ryder Cup passion - it’s what drove them to three successive victories from 2002 to 2006.

That was stripped of them at Valhalla, and now it must be restored, not on the first tee at Celtic Manor in two years time - but now.

The decision of who will succeed Nick Faldo, as captain and hopefully as a more inspired leader, will occupy the agenda when stalwarts like Colin Montgomerie and Darren Clarke join 13 other Tour officials at St Andrews to begin discussions over the new captain.

The sooner the better.

Three names top the list - Ian Woosnam, Sandy Lyle and Jose Maria Olazabal.

For me, the man to do it is Woosnam.

I know the days of a player captaining the side more than once are over, consigned to history after Bernard Gallagher’s victory over the States in 1995.

But Woosnam engendered a real passion in the European team at the K Club two years ago, building on the platform of unity begun by Sam Torrance at the Belfry and by the quiet authority of Bernhard Langer two years later.

He showed great leadership, inspired his rookies, leant on his elder players and utilised the huge well of sympathy for Clarke, whose wife Heather had passes away just three weeks before the match.

Clarke responded with three points from three as Ireland adopted Woosnam as one of its own.

One other factor is that Woosnam is Welsh and with the competition in his homeland, the former Masters champion and World No 1 will generate huge support in the valleys.

The Welsh will help whip up a storm of passion on the undulating fairways of Celtic Manor.

Lyle is Woosnam’s likely challenger to the crown, and Woosnam may yet withdraw himself from the race.

The amiable Scot won major championships at home and across the pond, and would bring the same degree of quiet authority Langer commanded at Oakland Hills.

If Lyle misses out again though, he will rightly consider himself to have been overlooked harshly by the Tour committee who looked favourably on the other members of Europe’s big five who transformed the Ryder Cup in the 80s and were rewarded with their shot at captaining the team - Seve Ballesteros (1997), Langer (2004), Woosnam (2006) and Faldo just last week.

Olazabal continued Europe’s renaissance in the 90s and with his two major wins coming in America and making much of his living on the PGA Tour, he would be a better choice to lead the team at Medinah in 2012.

Olazabal’s playing days may be numbered as fatigue ravages his body, but reports coming out of the team room at Valhalla in the aftermath of Europe’s defeat cast a new light on the quiet Spaniard.

As Faldo’s only assistant, it was according to rookie Oliver Wilson, Olazabal who led the passionate rallying calls in the team room.

With Montgomerie almost certain to captain the side at Gleneagles in 2014, Europe can at least be confident that passion will be restored with the next men to take the hotseat, particularly if Woosnam retakes the mantle in two years time.

Americans running scared

Reading American golf websites, you would be forgiven for thinking the Ryder Cup was not happening at all next week.

The biennial match is supposedly the biggest golf tournament in the world, certainly from a team perspective, and the Americans should be hell-bent on revenge after three morale-destroying defeats at the hands of the unheralded Europeans.

One would expect the furore whipped up over the ensuing battle to be full of George W Bush style war rhetoric from columnists on partisan American sports websites like PGA Tour.com and ESPN.

While these two websites are always informative, entertaining and often controversial, the only Cup they are focussing on this week is the FedEx Cup, not the Ryder Cup.

Vijay Singh and Camillo Villegas dominate the golf news agenda Stateside, despite there being only eight days until the first tee shot at Valhalla, Kentucky.

The Fijian and the Columbian, along with Kenny Perry and Antony Kim who will make their Ryder Cup debuts next week, are chasing the enormous pot of gold at the end of the FedEx Cup rainbow, four tournaments that offer prize money of $10m.

Money talks in sport, and with only pride on offer in the Ryder Cup, the American media are licking their lips at race for millions.

But it is not just the FedEx Cup’s scheduling just days before the Ryder Cup, that has knocked the Ryder Cup out of the headlines.

It is also because the Americans are running scared.

There’s no Tiger Woods this year because of injury, and for the first time in living memory they go into the Ryder Cup without a reigning major champion.

Here in Europe, after a major drought spanning eight years, we now have the best golfer in the world on present form, Padraig Harrington, winner of three out of the last six majors.

The American media are also embarrassed by their form over the last decade of Ryder Cups, and have sought to smear the good name of the famous old trophy.

Following a record equalling 18.5-9.5 win at the K Club, concerns began to emerge over here that Europe’s dominance in recent years - winning five of the last six matches - could be a double-edged sword.

As well as Europe plays, as united as they become in the face of such overwhelming favourites they share the first tee with, it only serves to diminish the interest shown in the competition by the American galleries, and the people who fuel their conspiracies, namely the American media.

After losing a third straight Ryder Cup 24 months ago at the K Club, certain sections of the American media suggested the President’s Cup, where the US team take on a Rest of the World team packed with major winners like Singh, Ernie Els, Retief Goosen and Mike Weir, had overtaken the Ryder Cup as the principle team golf game.

Team Europe, with no major winners from 1999 to 2006, no longer held the right to be considered worthy opponents for the mights USA.

No doubt the players themselves did not feel that about Samuel Ryder’s trophy, steeped in tradition.

What those three consecutive defeats did prompted a change in attitude from the American golfing authorities, with 2008 captain Paul Azinger immediately announcing on taking office that he would increase his wild card picks from two to four.

Not the biggest of alterations to the format, but a revolutionary move nonetheless, and one that showed the America team, regardless of the media, are serious about winning back the Ryder Cup and restoring faith to their own game.

Nick Faldo’s team Europe go to Valhalla in unknown territory, as favourites. The Americans, who declare winners of their own sports like baseball and football as world champions, aren’t used to being the underdogs.

No doubt next week, after Villegas, Singh or some other fortunate walks off with enough money to feed a small country, the American media will shift focus to the Ryder Cup, but it won't be with the same inspirational rhetoric as before.

That's because Team Europe have earned the right to dictate the golf headlines.

Wildcard race reaches boiling point

Paul Casey, Darren Clarke or Ian Poulter?

Those three names will have Nick Faldo’s head spinning this week as he tries to determine which two he should make wildcard selections to complete the European team for the Ryder Cup match at Valhalla, Kentucky next month.

They are three big names, all with their merits for being selected, who have left their Ryder Cup fates in the hands of Faldo, the six-time major winner, and no slouch in the Ryder Cup neither having won 11 caps against the United States.

Seven players are already assured of selection through either the world or European points lists.

They are: Lee Westwood, Sergio Garcia, Henrik Stenson, Robert Karlsson, Miguel Angel Jimenez, Graeme McDowell and Padraig Harrington, the Irishman who has elevated his game to such an extent that with three major titles out of the last six contested, he is now the leading contender to Tiger Woods’ dominance.

Those at Johnnie Walker Championship at Gleneagles seeking to still play their way into the three remaining spots are Justin Rose, Soren Hansen, Oliver Wilson, Martin Kaymer, Ross Fisher and Nick Dougherty.

Only a catastrophe can prevent Rose making a belated Ryder Cup debut, and it is to be hoped that this fierce competitor finally gets a chance to get stuck into the Americans.

It would also be good to see Martin Kaymer join the party after two wins this year that have shown what a promising talent this young German is.

That leaves one of Hansen, Wilson, Fisher or Dougherty to make up the qualifying 10, all of them potential rookies but with experienced campaigners like Harrington and Westwood to feed off, that shouldn’t be too much of a concern.

One man who could still have played his way onto the team was Poulter, until he elected to stay in America and play in the second leg of the FedEx Cup play-off series.

That could prove a foolish move even for a man who showed potential Ryder Cup temperament by holing a 15-foot putt on the 72nd green at Royal Birkdale just last month.

Ignoring the chance to play his way in might tip the balance in favour of Clarke, who a month ago was considered a long shot, but now after his runaway victory at the Dutch Open, is considered the man in form.

Casey has shown considerable improvement in recent weeks and while he remains winless, his role in Europe’s record equalling victory at the K Club two year ago was inspirational and passionate.

One name missing of course is Colin Montgomerie, or field marshall Montgomerie as he should be known in the Ryder Cup.

It’s unlikely he will make it onto the slip of paper Nick Faldo issues to the press on Sunday evening.

The proud Scot, whose Ryder Cup record is used as a leveller against those who have won the majors that have so often eluded him, has struggled all season with his game, and not even a win in his native land this week would elevate him into the top 10.

It might make Faldo think though. Let’s hope so, because no-one encapsulates the Ryder Cup spirit better than Monty, Europe’s on-course general, who has led from the front in past Ryder Cups, notably in 2002 when his resounding victory over Scott Hoch at the top of the singles order set the tone for Sam Torrance’s side’s narrow victory and the subsequent years of unprecedented dominance for Team Europe.

So who would my picks be, and who do I think Faldo will go with?

For me, it should be CASEY and CLARKE, but I think the captain will go with CASEY and POULTER.

Bidding farewell to a pioneering legend

The game of golf bids farewell to one of its greats this week.

A professional in every manner of the word, who elevated the sport to a new level with a period of dominance unmatched by rivals.

A player who transcended boundaries, but who always had the utmost respect to the regular paymasters on a Tour she made her own over the past decade.

Women’s golf will be forever indebted to Annika Sorenstam who retires at the end of season. She departs the major scene in which she triumphed 10 times, at the Ricoh’s Women’s British Open at Sunningdale this week.

The 37-year-old is leaving golf for a career in business and to spend more time with her family.

No doubt she will be successful in both, having been a dedicated, determined and pioneering golfer on the course.

Born in Stockholm in 1970, the blonde-haired Swede had a similar impact on the women’s Tour to that of Tiger on the men’s tour.

She elevated women’s golf from poor relation to respected equal.

Her dominance of the sport for more than a decade enhanced the quality of golf on show. She raised the bar that others since have tried to reach.

A graduate of the University of Arizona, Sorenstam split her time between playing in America and forging the reputation of the Ladies European Tour on her home continent.

In 1995 she gave notice of her intentions with victory in the US Women’s Open.

It was the first of 10 major titles, including the career grand slam which she completed in 2003 with the McDonald’s LPGA Championship and the Weetabix Women’s British Open at Royal Lytham, her only triumph in Britain’s main event.

Sorenstam won three LPGA Championships in a row and helped cement the Kraft Nabisco Championship as the womens game’s fourth major with another trio of titles in 2001, 2002 and 2005.

Her major-winning career came full circle in 2006 when she won the US Open at Newport for a third time, making it a grand 10 to her name.

With that victory she tied her great friend Tiger Woods on 10 major championship wins. Woods has since gone on to add four more titles, while Sorenstam slid down the rankings, overtaken by the new crop of American players like Morgan Pressel, the influx of players from the Far East and the growing dominance of Mexican Lorena Ochoa, who has strode out from the long shadow cast by Sorenstam, to dominate the sport in a similar fashion.

For years pundits drew hypothetical parallels as to who was the greatest golfer, Tiger or Annika?

In 2003, she got her chance to put that theory into practice.

In a landmark for women’s golf, Sorenstam became the first LPGA player to compete on the men’s tour at the Colonial tournament in Texas. Her inclusion in the field polarised locker room opinion, Vijay Singh the loudest voice calling for her to stick to her own tour.

Sorenstam missed the cut, largely due to her lack of length off the tee and from the fairway when measured against the men.

But when it came to her short game she was than a match for her temporary peers, and at the end of two emotionally-draining days she broke down in tears, showing a human side that tugged on the heart strings.

There may be tears at Sunningdale again this weekend, whether she crowns her career with another title, or whether she fades into the field and makes the walk up the 18th fairway out of contention.

One thing is for sure, women’s golf has lost its greatest player and its greatest ambassador.

Birkdale wind separates men from the boys

Watching Greg Norman roll back the years yesterday afternoon was the highlight of the opening day at Royal Birkdale.

Having set off from home at 5am, and then got drenched following Simon Dyson for four hours, getting the chance to witness a legend like Norman complete his round and then entertain the media, made it all worthwhile.

The two-time Open champion spoke of his appreciation of the course, giving the under-fire R&A a perfect ally in the battle against those who doubted the set-up of some of the par fours. Men like Sandy Lyle, a legend in his own right, who gave up halfway round.

Admittedly, Norman got the better of the conditions, with Lyle, Dyson and the rest of the morning starters playing in weather akin to the storms and gales of the third day at Muirfield six years ago.

My over-riding memory of that Saturday in 2002 was Ernie Els.

While everyone was cowering for cover and being blown off course – Tiger Woods shot a major-worst 81 – the big South African gritted his teeth and marched into the eye of the storm, producing a solid effort that effectively sealed his first Claret Jug the following day.

Typical links weather really does separate the men from the boys. The wind whips in off the course, buffets off the sand dunes and swirls around the tee boxes.

Common occurrences at an Open Championship is a player hitting a drive, watching it sail off into the deep rough, and then turning to his caddy with a shrug of the shoulders before ripping up a clump of grass and throwing it in the air.

More often than not, that wind has changed direction in a matter of seconds.

With the weather on this Friday morning in West Lancashire being similar to yesterday, if not as
severe, it is going to be another day when the men rise above the boys.

The wind is already howling, bringing with it a damp sea mist off the North Sea.

Scores will be high again today. Anything around 72/73 will be a good effort.

An Open Champion does not only have to prove he can master a championship course, but that he has the measure of the weather as well.