ISM will have no fewer than 11 players at Royal Troon between July 15 and 18 attempting to get their hands on the Open Championship’s silver claret jug.
Our numbers swelled to that record figure at Sunningdale on Monday when Mark Foster prevailed over a European Tour strength field while Paul McGinley and Simon Wakefield both finished tied fourth to claim places at the 36-hole International Qualification.
Many congratulations to the three of them as they join Darren Clarke, Lee Westwood, Graeme McDowell, James Kingston, Louis Oosthuizen, David Howell and associates Paul Casey and Ian Poulter on the west coast of Scotland. We nearly had a dozen, but Ian Garbutt just missed out in a play-off and will be an alternate should anybody drop out at Troon.
Graeme has had quite a few mentions in this column recently and I make no apologies for pointing out that he is turning out every bit as good as we thought he would be. A closing course record at the French Open gave him another top 5 finish and another boost towards Ryder Cup qualification.
David Howell is another constantly hovering around the head of the leader board and I am sure his big week is not very far away while elsewhere, significant progress is being shown by Stuart Manley, Danny Wardrop and Sandeep Grewal.
I was hoping to introduce Darren to the delights of one-day cricket at Old Trafford last week, but although he saw the ground, the rain put paid to any action. At least we all spent a pleasant time in the company of many of the England players and our bonus for the day was spent shouting home our horse Tequila Sheila at Hamilton. I don’t back many 16-1 winners so we celebrated this one in style although most of the night I have very little recollection of.
Let’s hope we have plenty to celebrate at Troon too.
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