Dear Industry Colleague,

There have been many changes to the golfing calendar over the years, but moving the USPGA Championship to May seems to be an inspired decision. The excitement of the Masters is followed by what some will consider the weakest major, namely the USPGA Championship, then the US Open in June swiftly followed by our own Open Championship in July: four months of fantastic golfing activity.

The Championship this year for the Wanamaker trophy was very excitjng and congratulations go to Justin Thomas in his thrilling playoff win over the hugely talented Will Zalatoris and the unfortunate Chilean Pereira who messed up the last hole of regulation play to miss both the chance of winning outright and also the playoff with a nervy six. Their chance will come again. Whilst the enormous riches on offer to these stellar performers make it hard to sympathise for multimillionaire golfers when some of the world is suffering far greater problems, there must always be sympathy for the vanquished and the disappointed. 

Tiger Woods made the cut again despite pulling out before the final round - it does seem that he can be relevant at St Andrews when the course is played over much flatter terrain. His leg and ankle are clearly far from healed and I hope he can get back to relatively pain free golf in the future. Rory, who started so brightly still concluded with a top 10 finish and could even have eclipsed the leaders on the last day had his putter behaved a little better.

A fascinating championship and now so much more relevant to the golfing calendar. 

There are a number of other interesting things happening in the golf world at the moment. Will LIV manage to stage a successful tournament at the Centurion Club next month? This could pave the way for some real alternatives for top professionals seeking to maximise on the cash they make while their swing is strong and their touch sure. Whilst all countries have a number of things they’d rather hide, Saudi Arabia‘s human rights record is appalling with 81 people executed quite recently and the murder of the journalist Khashoggi - brazen and disgraceful. 

I’m not quite sure what Jack Nicklaus’s role in this grubby affair has been, and until things are clarified it would be completely unfair to comment further, but vast chunks of money do have a tendency to test the character of any man or woman, no matter how many trophies they have lifted.

Whilst the decision to play is up to the individual golf professionals, I’m personally very pleased that the majority of the prominent players have decided that they will not take part in the sports washing of a murderous regime - congratulations to them all. 

Best wishes, Colin Jenkins