Profile / Dai Davies / 18 October 2007 / Leave a Comment

Ulsterman is set to rewrite the history books but there is too much quality in Portugal this week, write golf journalist Dai Davies

Rory McIlroy is undoubtedly an exciting talent and his third place finish in the Dunhill Championships at St Andrews three weeks ago was a magnificent effort. Last week he followed that up with a joint fourth finish in the Madrid Open but not too much should be read into that,
even though it does confirm his tour card for next year. The field was, in European tour terms, a weak one and McIlroy should certainly have been aiming for a top ten.

This week he goes again, in the Portugese Masters, where he will find a little more opposition. Retief Goosen and Justin Rose probably top the list, although McIlroy will notice that the man who beat him at St Andrews, Nick Dougherty, is also playing. Add in the likes of Lee Westwood, Robert Karlsson, Paul McGinley, David Howell and Andres Romero and you have a field worth beating.

Two who won't be there, though, are Ernie Els and Padraig Harrington, the former resting and the latter haveing played in the Grand Slam in Bermuda.

And that presents an opening for Rose in the race to win the European Order of Merit. He is currently third on €2,247,535, behind Ernie (2,496,237) and Padraig (2,278,942). If the Englishman can win - first prize in Portugal is €500,000 - he will go top, and with Els not playing in the final counting event, the Volvo Masters (he's committed to an event in Singapore) it is probably now down to Rose and Harrington.

But now that McIlroy has got his card it will be interesting to see whether he can go on and earn his way onto the Ryder Cup team for 2008.

Should he do so he would accomplish something no European has ever done before - play Ryder Cup golf the year after playing in the Walker Cup.

A number of golfers have played in the Walker Cup and then played in the next Ryder Cup - Sandy Lyle (1977 and 1979 respectively), Mark James (1975 and 1977) and Paul Way (1981 and 1983) - but they all had two years to make the transition. Because the Ryder Cup had to
change dates following the 9/11 disaster in 2001, moving from odd-numbered years to even, no-one has gone from the peak of amateur golf to the same level in professional golf quite so quickly. The history books beckon for the young Ulsterman.

***

If you were looking for Annika Sorenstam's name in the list of competitors for last week's elite Samsung World Championship event in Palm Desert, California you would not, for the first time in 12 years, be able to find it.

The Swede, who has been injured this year, did not qualify, despite having been the world number one seemingly forever, despite having won the Samsung a record five times and despite, by any measurement, still being one of the very best players in the world.

The tournament, which accepts only 20 players, has five categories: the four major champions, the defending champion, Europe's leading money winner, one special exemption and the remainder from the LPGA Money List.

So, given what she has done for the game, given that her not qualifying was an injury-related fluke, why not give Annika the special exemption? Simple really. It had already been given to ... Michelle Wie. Michelle Wie? Yes, that's right. The 18-year-old Stanford student who has done absolutely nothing this year and has a stroke average of over 77 was given the invitation in March, for reasons which defy rational explanation.

Then, as October approached, the organisers, IMG, began to realise that Annika, who they manage, was not going to make the field. They also realised that a Samsung without Sorenstam was a total nonsense.

So they invented a new category: "Hall of Famer still active on tour," and awarded it to the Swede. Fortunately Annika is one of the good gals, saw this for the sneaky move that it was, and refused to play. It did nothing for the tournament but it greatly enhanced Sorenstam's reputation and struck a blow for principle in sport everywhere.

And what of Wie? Well, if it hadn't been for the European representative, Bettina Hauert, playing even worse, Wie would have been dead last. As it was she finished an incredible 36 shots behind the winner, Lorena Ochoa, whose total of 270, 18-under par, won her US$250,000. Wie "won" US$13,000, more than she had previously earned all year and about US$13,000 more than she deserved.

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