Hi everyone,

So, Tiger is back! Now, hang on a minute, didn’t we say that almost exactly a year ago? Yes we did and, in fact, I wrote an email after he withdrew from a tournament earlier this year where I proposed that we were possibly witnessing the start of the end for him. Just recently, whilst talking to friends, I wrote him off as done and that he couldn’t possibly get back to former glories now. That now seems to be a foolish comment but I think a little caution is wise here.

Last year he had a break after a back operation and came back in the same tournament and had one really good round followed by a few average ones, but it looked pretty promising. Then his back blew up again and he disappeared, and at that point I ventured that we might see this happen a few times again and that might then signal the end for him.

Well this time it looks good, and I have to admit to being pretty excited at the prospect of him possibly being back to challenge the top youngsters again. His game looked solid and clearly the long lay off, and intensive rehab that he has been going through, seems to have paid off.

But I am constantly reminded of my own prophecy last year. Would it really be much of a surprise if he plays a few tournaments and then suddenly has problems again? You really have no idea how much I hope that is not the case and that this time he and his back, and other areas of his much broken body, stay strong enough to contend in the biggest tournaments. It would be as big a story, I believe, as his incredible dominance that started twenty years ago, and should the incredible happen and he won another major then I’m not sure how we’d be describing him.

Love him or hate him it is undeniable that he is box office (I am not oblivious to the fact the I am talking almost exclusively about a player who finished around 10th out of 18 and haven’t even mentioned Ricky Fowler whose incredible 61 in the final round won him the event. I have now!) and great for the game. We will all be watching closely to see how he moves forward. Incidentally, having asked the internet for some information on when he is playing again it seems that will not be til the end of January. We wait with fingers crossed!

Ross Champan does it again

Back at home the incredible scoring continues. I was wondering if the official monthly stableford might sort out a few of the newer members who have been performing so well lately, but not a bit of it. Ross Chapman did it again but he was not alone.

Division 1 was an incredibly close affair with three players tied on 40 points. Pete Adsett, Tony Squire and Arthur Stevenson could only be separated by countback but Division 2 was a different story. Once again Ross Chapman produced a monster round scoring 46 points. The good news is he’s now down to 14.7 but the bad news is he would have won off that as well! Well done Ross - keep it up. Alan Jackson must have felt his 42 points might have been enough but in the end it was only good for second while our head of greens, Jim Turner along with Andy Wilks tied third on 40 points. Fantastic scoring again everyone so well done to all.

This also meant that the season long ‘cock of the green’ competition was won by Lee Gillespie with Kingsley Greenaway coming in second. Well done to both again.