Stenson support for home rule

Newly-crowned European number one Henrik Stenson has given a guarded welcome to a new European Tour regulation requiring players to support their home events or be forced to play an extra two tournaments. Players currently have to play a minimum of 13 tournaments for European Tour membership, but that will be increased to 15 for the 2014 season if they do not contest their national open or equivalent. The move was approved by the European...

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Stenson ruled out

Race To Dubai winner Henrik Stenson has withdrawn from this week's South African Open due to an ongoing wrist injury. Stenson, who clinched the 2012/13 European Tour season-long title by winning the DP World Tour Championship on Sunday, won the South African event last season. "Despite my performance in Dubai, I am still having concerns about my wrist, and it really needs to rest," Stenson said. "I realise this is disappointing to the...

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Uihlein named top rookie

American Peter Uihlein has been named the European Tour's rookie of the year. Uihlein's first season on the tour saw him win his maiden title at the Madeira Islands Open and finish 14th in the season-long Race To Dubai. The 24-year-old is the first American to win the Sir Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year award. He joins the likes of Nick Faldo, José María Olazábal, Colin Montgomerie and Martin Kaymer as a recipient. He said: "It's an...

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Back injury sidelines Oosthuizen

Louis Oosthuizen will miss next week's Alfred Dunhill Championship at Leopard Creek after having painkilling cortisone injections in his back. The South African has struggled with a lower back problem this year and missed two months of action after withdrawing from the Open Championship - a tournament he won in 2010. A course of injections to reduce pain and inflammation in the affected area has now ruled him out for 14 days. "I was...

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Outsiders given Royal approval

David John has gone with some big-priced selections for the ISPS Handa World Cup of Golf at Royal Melbourne. This week's ISPS Handa World Cup of Golf is a bit of a curate's egg. We have a team competition, an individual prize and some of the runners having played - and won - at the course in the Talisker Masters. The splendid Royal Melbourne layout gets its second airing in as many weeks and hosts Australia are the hot favourites at...

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Romain set to conquer Glendower

The South African Open returns to Glendower Golf Club this week and our Ben Coley expects Romain Wattel to relish the test. Glendower Golf Club makes its return to the South African Open rota this week, the first time the Gauteng course has hosted the event since Vijay Singh won the title in 1997. Much has changed since then, with the course undergoing serious renovations in 2008. Given the 16-year gap and said changes, which include a...

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Race is on and value available

David John is backing Rory McIlroy to rediscover his best and join Ian Poulter in challenging for the 2014 Race To Dubai. Another compelling Race To Dubai has come to a conclusion and a bit like the National Hunt season in horse racing, we barely have time to draw breath before we are under way once more for 2014 in South Africa. Five of the first six events take place there with big pots in particular at the Nedbank Challenge and Volvo...

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R&A: Slow-motion and HD replays to have reduced role in rules

The R&A and USGA have ruled that players will no longer be penalised if slow-motion video or high-definition replays show a ball moved when at rest but was not obvious to the naked eye. It is one of several changes golf's governing bodies made to the Decisions on the Rules of Golf on Tuesday. The rule will limit the role of the kind of "enhanced technological evidence" that saw Tiger Woods penalised at the BMW Championship. The...

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Guan set to start at Hong Kong Open

Chinese golfing sensation Guan Tian-lang is set to star in the Hong Kong Open from December 5-8. The youngster may have only turned 15 a couple of weeks ago, but his appearance at the Hong Kong Golf Club will bring down the curtain on a year that not even Hollywood’s finest writers could have scripted. Having qualified for this year’s Masters Tournament by winning the 2012 Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship, Guan took the golfing world...

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Big Three dominate LPGA tour in 2013

NAPLES, Fla. – World No. 1 Inbee Park has won six tournaments this season, including three consecutive major championships, notched 10 top-10 finishes and has led the money list for most of the season. In most any other year, she would have wrapped up the Player of the Year award in July. Yet Park only secured the Rolex Player of the Year honors last week with a tie for fourth place in the LPGA tour's penultimate tournament of the season,...

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Rule change could have meant no penalty for Tiger Woods

The U.S. Golf Association and the R&A announced Tuesday four noteworthy revisions to the "Decisions on the Rules of Golf," most notably the use of high definition recordings to determine infractions. The change most likely would have saved Tiger Woods two strokes in this year's BMW Championship. The governing bodies have determined that "where enhanced technological evidence shows that a ball has left its position and come to rest in...

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Golf governing bodies tweak rules over 'trial by television'

Golf's governing bodies have made a total of 87 changes to the 2014-2015 version of their 'Decisions on the Rules of Golf', among them one allowing players to make more use of modern technology during the course of their round. The changes also reduce the ability of TV viewers to report what they perceive as breaches of the rules when players' balls appear to move without being touched, despite the movement being undetectable by the naked...

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Louis Oosthuizen forced to miss Alfred Dunhill Championship

Louis Oosthuizen has been forced to pull out of next week's Alfred Dunhill Championship at Leopard Creek after having painkilling cortisone injections in his back. The South African has struggled with a lower back problem this year and missed two months of action after withdrawing from the Open Championship - a tournament he won in 2010. A course of injections to reduce pain and inflammation in the affected area has now ruled him out for...

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American Peter Uihlein has been named rookie of the year by the European Tour

Peter Uihlein has been named Sir Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year on the European Tour, the first American to receive the award. The 24-year-old, who turned professional in December 2011 after a successful amateur career, won his maiden title at the Madeira Islands Open in May before finishing second at both the Wales Open and Alfred Dunhill Links Championship in September. Uihlein also had several other top-10 finishes and ended up in...

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Chinese teen sensation Guan to star in Hong Kong Open

Hong Kong - Chinese golf prodigy Guan Tianlang will star in December's Hong Kong Open, organisers announced Tuesday, just weeks after he celebrated his 15th birthday. The Guangzhou schoolboy sent shockwaves through the sport at the US Masters in April when, aged just 14 years, five months and 18 days, he became the youngest golfer to make the cut at a major tournament. He will return to the world stage at the beginning of December at the...

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Have driver, will travel: Peter Uihlein's path

NAPLES, Fla. -- The road less traveled brought Peter Uihlein back to a familiar place. He was home in South Florida, finally, after a remarkable golf season that took some unexpected turns while covering six tours in 18 countries, three U.S. states and Puerto Rico. In the hours before the New England Patriots kicked off on Monday night - his kind of football - he kept busy by replying to messages on Twitter congratulating him for being the first American to win European Tour rookie of the year in the 53-year history of the Sir Henry Cotton...

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5 Things to Know about the World Cup of Golf

MELBOURNE, Australia -- The World Cup of Golf begins Thursday at Royal Melbourne with 25 two-man teams and eight to 10 individual golfers vying for $8 million in prize money. Here are five things to know about the tournament that celebrates its 60th year in 2013: LEADING TO RIO: The format has been substantially changed this year to make it primarily a stroke-play competition and, in essence, a very early ''test event'' for the 2016 Olympics,...

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Olympics-Rio Games golf course progress "reasonably good" - Finchem

Progress on the troubled golf course hosting the sport's Olympic debut at the 2016 Rio Games is "reasonably good", PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem said on Wednesday. Construction at the Venue Reserva de Marapendi course, being controversially built in an environmental reservation, was held up for months by legal wrangling over land ownership. "I was told yesterday that the irrigation system for the golf course had been boarded on a ship in Los Angeles that was headed for the Panama Canal," Finchem told reporters at Royal Melbourne golf...

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Oosthuizen sidelined after recurrence of back injury

Former British Open champion Louis Oosthuizen will be out for two weeks after suffering a recurrence of a long-standing back problem, his management company said on Tuesday. The 31-year-old South African has been told to rest after having cortisone injections. "My back has been sore during the last few tournaments and it has been frustrating," Oosthuizen said in a news release. "I'm hopeful the injections will free up the problem and enable it to go away completely." The injury also kept 2010 Open champion Oosthuizen on the sidelines...

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Golf-New ball movement rule would have spared Woods' blushes

Eighty seven changes have been made to the 2013-14 edition of the "Decisions on the Rules of Golf" manual but one in particular will be of interest to world number oneTiger Woods. New Decision 18/4, agreed by the Royal and Ancient and the United States Golf Association (USGA), aims to clarify when a ball has been inadvertently moved by a player - a scenario that left Woods fuming at the BMW Championship in September. Woods suffered a two-stroke penalty at the first hole in his second round after he tried to remove a twig from behind his...

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