Golf Central

Time to add to the adage you can’t keep a good man down with the sub-clause:  you can never shut a megalomaniac with stupid hair up, either.

Having already upset everyone in Scotland (not all that difficult really) with his plans for a billion dollar resort In Aberdeenshire, it seems that the plans to take the project to Country Antrim in Northern Ireland are quietly moving forward. Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond is so desperate to impress the Trumpster, that he’s ordered an enquiry to find out why planning permission was turned down by local authorities.

Meanwhile, a member of Trump’s empire of wealth, George Sorial, has flown in to Northern Ireland this week. Strenuous denials abound that the trip is anything other than exploratory, despite the Rev Ian Paisley having tapped up Trump in person on a recent trip to the US.

How we would have dearly loved to be at that meeting… See what our friends at the Belfast Telegraph are saying about it.

News of the death of PGA tour caddie Steve Duplantis earlier this week has been mourned as the sad loss of one of the most characterful figures in the game. Former bagman for Jim Furyk, Rich Beem and Daniel Chopra, by all accounts Duplantis loved life, liquor and the ladies – strippers a speciality. He was knocked down by a taxi in the early hours of Wednesday in Del Mar, prior to this week’s Buick Invitational, where he was working for Eric Axley. Check out Sports Illustrated and Rich Beem biographer Alan Shipnuck's obit.

On this day in 1999, something was definitely happening behind the wraparound-shaded eyes of David Duval. For it was on this day that Duval shot a final-round 59 at the Palmer Course at PGA West in the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic.

And we're going to argue that Duval's 59 was the best competitive round of golf in the modern era. He started the round seven shots behind the leader, hit pin-seeking iron shots all day, made every putt he needed to make, and topped it off with grand theatre ... a proper hero shot - a balls-to-the-wall 5-iron laced over treacherous water to within eight feet for an eagle on the last hole. And he made the eagle putt to win by one shot. Duval's 59 didn't happen in a major, but for drama it certainly can't be beaten ...

On this day in 1977, Tom Watson proved his mastery of Pebble Beach Golf Links by beating Tony Jacklin by a shot to win the Bing Crosby National Pro-Am. ... And just to prove it wasn't a fluke, Watson did it again on this day in 1978, by outlasting Ben Crenshaw on a second playoff hole.

The fact that 1978 was a leap year gave Watson the rare opportunity of winning the Crosby on the same date in back-to-back calendar years. Of course, Watson was no stranger to amazing feats at Pebble Beach, most famously chipping in for birdie on the 17th hole to beat Jack Nicklaus in the 1982 US Open ...

Bizarre golf injuries are always are favourites - but as one who hopes that the Americans will actually be able to muster up a bit of a fight this year in the Ryder Cup, doubts are beginning to crystalise as to whether captain Paul Azinger will be able to find 12 fit bodies to suit up for the US.

First of all there's the immensely talented young hick Boo Weekley, who simply needs to learn to travel better. Somehow our Southern-fried hero managed to make it all the way to China and back for the World Cup alive. But the small-town boy had trouble a-plenty on his way to Hawaii ("sorry 'bout them deer-huntin' bullets in my carry-on bag, officuh, sir").

And then, at last weekend's Bob Hope Chrysler Classic in the Southern California desert, it was blood everywhere as Boo suffered constant nosebleeds. Used to the dank humidity of the Florida panhandle, Boo couldn't stop gushing blood from his nostrils in the dry desert air of Palm Springs. Asked if he'd ever had nosebleeds before, Boo said: "No sir, not unless somebody hit me in the nose." ...

And then the celebrities got into the act, trying to knock out one of the PGA Tour's best feel-good stories of the year so far. The veteran Robert Gamez was minding his own business, trying to secure his card and work into winning form, when his celebrity partner Anthony Anderson, the B-list actor from Barbershop, clocked him in the head on the tee box with his driver.

"It's a good thing I've got a pretty hard head," said Gamez.

The Americans need to learn something from their fearless captain Azinger, who keeps throwing verbal haymakers at his European counterpart Nick Faldo with abandon. Faldo is hardly offering resistance, but if he does, Azinger knows when to duck.