General / Bill Elliott / 01 November 2007 /

Bill Elliott hopes for a bit more sense from the 2008 golfing calendar

While over the centuries misguided nutters have spent far too much of their lives contemplating the creation of a Time Machine, the European Tour has just got on with things and done it. Well, okay, not so much a vehicle upon/in/attached to which you may journey back and forth to meet your mum when she used to stay out late before slipping into the future to encounter the triplets you didn't know you were about to father but more of a unique calendar that has flown in the face of logic for the last couple of decades.

So this week we arrive at the end of the 2007 season with the dramatic, climactic Volvo Masters down on the Spanish Med coast at Valderrama and no sooner have we contemplated this fact than we have to consider the other one which is that the 2008 European season begins four days later in Shanghai with the HSBC Champions event. Who am I? Where am I? What flaming year, never mind day, is it?

This illogical state of affairs has finally been tackled by Euro boss George O'Grady whose legacy, if nothing else, is likely to be the fact that he is the man who realised that bending calendars might be fun in a daft sort of way but mostly it is just daft. So from 2009 the season will begin in that calendar year and, glory be, finish in it too. Suddenly we will all know where we are even if we remain confused about almost everything else in our tattered lives.

By the way, did I say this week's Volvo Masters would be 'dramatic and climactic'? Well, I might be correct but on the other hand the fact that the European No.1 title will be decided at this event is no guarantee of drama. Not when the leading money winner isn't there. Instead, Ernie Els is scheduled to play in Singapore, a lucrative gig for the big man and one that was set up apparently when the smart advice to his management company suggested there would be no clash of dates.

So while Padraig Harrington or Justin Rose (trading at 11.5 and 14 early on Thursday morning) can overtake Els by finishing in the top three and even Henrik Stenson and Niclas Fasth have a shout if everyone else breaks a leg, Els is likely to end this year as Europe's top player without the inconvenience of even having to complete the race. This thing just gets more confusing all the time.

But then it's been that sort of year. I mean what deranged buffoon decided that the US Masters would be won by a golfer like Zach Johnson, a player so quietly unimpressive most of the time that even his wife falls asleep watching him? But he did, thanks to a get-lucky week with his putter and, according to Zach, Jesus Christ, it being Easter weekend in Georgia this year. Oh please, someone put me out of my misery.

Then Angel Cabrera goes and wins the US Open on a course that had the experts calling for protective face-masks so tight and tough was Oakmont. Cabrera? An unusually sullen Argentine who whacks it, finds it and whacks it again. Game plan? His only concern was that he had enough cigarettes in his bag to complete his round in a big ball of smoke.

Then at Carnoustie we got to witness more nervous breakdowns than the average medic sees in an entire career before Padraig Harrington clung on to what remained of his shredded nervous system to hold off Sergio Garcia who, anyway, was the far side of barking at the time. Some sense was injected into the scene when Tiger Woods won the USPGA Championship. Even so, by Woods' stellar standards 2007 remains a funny old year.

So who will prevail out in Spain this weekend? Probably someone none of us would give a more than a passing glance to and then only if we were well past the fourth glass of Oz red. The only thing I know is that it will not be Ernest Theodore Els. And the other thing I know is that this is a great pity no matter who is responsible for the cock-up over dates. Roll on 2009 when there is a chance we might know what is going on. And when...

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