Golf Central

Jesper Parnevik: only here for the beer, apparently...

You can learn a lot from golf in a week. Seven things, in fact, involving the unlucky Oliver Wilson, the joy of being a hat-trick hero, Phil Mickelson's wealth and the simple fact that the older you get the harder the game becomes.

1. Seven is not necessarily a lucky number

Just ask Oliver Wilson, who came second for the seventh time in his European Tour career to Miguel Angel Jimenez at last weekend's BMW PGA Championship.2.

2. A hat-trick of BMW championships means nothing

Not trying to make light of our favourite Spaniard's achievements, it's just that the line touted by The European Tour after Jimenez's win is of significance only to the event's sponsors.

3. Phil Mickelson is quite good at golf

...And it's no coincidence that he's quite good at making money. This is the 13th season in a row that Mickelson has made more than $1million in prize money (in fact it's $2.7million so far), tying the PGA Tour record with Davis Love III.

4. Life doesn't get any easier when you get older

Not by the look of the scores at the 69th Senior PGA Championship at Oak Hill. Jay Haas won by a shot at 7-over from Berhard Langer and said he gave Oak Hill pro Craig Harmon some friendly stick: "He said the rough was two inches. I don't know when. Maybe in March, or something."

5. Will no one ever listen to common sense?!!

All that stupid, greedy talk of golf in the Olympics surfaced again after European Tour boss George O'Grady fessed up last week that he and his PGA Tour buddies had met up with IOC gaffer Jacques Rogge.

6. The drugs don't work

Or they certainly won't after O'Grady confirmed that The European Tour would introduce drug-testing on tour in July.

7. Crucifixion's too good for some people...

Shame on Peter Long, secretary of The New Golf Club in St Andrews, for carrying a glass from the St Andrews Golf Club to the New Golf Club in contravention of a local bylaw, and swearing at a club member, who told him he could not sleep in a camp bed in the club cellar. The fact he was taking 3000mg of ibuprofen a day probably had nothing to do with it...