Major lessons

By Harry Emanuel Last updated: 18th August 2010

It's been a very interesting year of golf so far and I've learnt a lot between this year's majors starting with the Masters in April and finishing with USPGA Championship on Sunday.

If women don't wear underwear it's considered erotic but if men don't wear underwear it's considered perverted. The first Grouse of the season are too expensive at £25 a brace and one should wait till October but patience has never been my strong point.

If the Mrs buys something and asks if you like it there is no correct answer and even a simple 'yes' can get you into trouble. When addressed with such a situation its best to remain vague with a 'Lovely', 'Well Done' or 'Good Show' and then make an excuse that will get you out of the house a.s.a.p. (forgetting to lock the car is my favourite).

All that glitters is not Twitter (regular followers of this blog may remember a minor mix up in a pub one night). Dave 'The Wise One' Tindall is still the best tipster in golf but the worst organiser of accommodation.

Last week he would have had his two top picks for Whistling Straights (125/1 Bubba Watson and 50/1 Dustin Johnson) in the three-man play-off if Johnson hadn't incurred a two shot penalty on the last hole (which was unlucky but the correct decision).

I think in the end it was toss-up between Kaymer and Adam scott for the last place in his betting line up so he was very close to naming the 50/1 winner as well as 125/1 second.

I'm glad he doesn't regularly work in the hospitality industry as in some of the worst summer conditions ever seen in Scotland he booked the Golf365 team into tents which weren't even nailed properly to the ground and promptly flew away!

One couldn't fail to be impressed by Kaymer on Sunday who fellow Germans would call 'Nagel' showing an 'Eisernen Nerven' or as they say in south London he was nails and showed an iron nerve.

I've always been impressed by the young German who is only 25 and joined the European Tour in 2007 after a double winning season on the Challenge tour. He took a year to find his feet and then won twice in 2008 including his National Championship.

In 2009 he won back to back at the French Open and Loch Lomond and but for an ankle injury which sidelined him for two months he would have won the first Race to Dubai.

He's won twice this year, one of which is a major, and he looks destined to claim his fist Harry Vardon Trophy and the second Race to Dubai title. He is building a very impressive C.V. and I would argue he is Europe's best golfer.

Looking back, St Andrews continues to be a disappointing golf course on which to hold the Open Championship. Even when the wind gets up it's not that exciting and only long hitters who get lucky with the draw win.

Don't get me wrong I love the self styled 'Home of Golf' but there are much better golf courses on the Open roster and I can't wait for Royal St Georges next year.

The US Open continues to be one of the best tournaments in any sport, right up there with Super Bowl, Wimbledon, Cheltenham and the World Cup. Pebble Beach was a spectacular venue and is one of those special places in the world that makes you believe there is a God and he loved golf.

If Jesus was around today I reckon he would be a scratch golfer splitting his time between California and the British Isles. I'm sure he would be an honest golfer but I wouldn't play him for money. You couldn't help wondering every time you got an unlucky bounce or a putt lipped out whether he had anything to do with it.

The Masters is always one of the best tournaments to watch and each year in the lead up to the event Phil Mickelson seems to hit double figure odds. We must remember to put our hard earned on when that happens as he owns Augusta and will surely be in the mix for a few more years to come.

Tiger Woods has had an 'Annus Horribilis' which for those of you who don't speak Latin doesn't mean 'bad stomach'. It is a phrase that came to prominence in the Queen's speech in 1992; '1992 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure. In the words of one of my more sympathetic correspondents, it has turned out to be an Annus Horribilis.'

I'm sure if Tiger did a Christmas speech, which would be great to watch and would probably get a global audience of many millions (maybe something his agents might want to think about) he would say something similar about 2010.

He has hit rock bottom and the only way is up. Now he has a coach he should be able to get his long game in order but until he gets his personal life/mind in order he won't sort out his putter.

The powers that be certainly need to take a good hard look at the scheduling. The first half of the year is pretty well designed with World Matchplay (Feb), WGC at Doral (March), The Masters (April), The Players (May) and the US Open (June).

Then I'd make some changes along the lines of BMW PGA at Wentworth (July), The Open (Aug), WGC Bridgestone (Sept), PGA Championship (Oct) and Tour Championship/Race to Dubai Finale (Nov).

That would give us one major tournament each month for nine months and leave nearly three months off around Christmas for the top players to take a break or head to Australian/South Africa/Asia to play in their local tours.

Until they have the balls to make some big changes to the schedule we'll just have to wait nearly eight months for the next major!

Harry Emanuel