Ireland’s Peter Lawrie kept his cool to take a share of the first-round lead at the BMW PGA Championship as Rory McIlroy momentarily lost his in the Wentworth heat.
In contrast to Rory McIlroy’s club-throwing antics, Graeme McDowell showed remarkable grace under pressure as he closed bogey-par-triple bogey at Wentworth.
Peter Lawrie would have been an unlikely choice to become the first Irishman to win the European Tour’s PGA Championship since 1958 but he goes into today’s second round feeling bullish about his chances.
Rory McIlroy believes he is a worthy world number one and now he wants to prove it, starting this weekend at the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth.
It was a year ago at Wentworth that Luke Donald ascended to the top of the golfing pile, outlasting Lee Westwood in a play-off to win the BMW PGA Championship and oust his fellow Englishman as world number one.
Graeme McDowell will put his Volvo World Matchplay final disappointment behind him at Wentworth tomorrow as he kick-starts a summer of big-time tournaments at the BMW PGA Championship.
The crowds will be big and the world’s top three golfers, Luke Donald, Rory McIlroy and Lee Westwood, headline the €4.5m tournament, but for all the prestige surrounding the BMW PGA Championship, the European Tour’s flagship event is very much a parochial affair.
Pádraig Harrington will bid to build on encouraging form in the United States this week by finally getting to grips with Wentworth’s West Course at the BMW PGA Championship.
Graeme McDowell denied he became “rattled by the pressure” in his Volvo World Match Play Championship final defeat by Belgian Nicolas Colsaerts at Finca Cortesin yesterday.
Graeme McDowell knew he was already through to the knock-out stages of the Volvo World Match Play Championship at Finca Cortesin yesterday ever before taking on South African Jbe Kruger.
Graeme McDowell hit back from arrears of two holes after three to beat Sweden’s Robert Karlsson in the first round of the Volvo Match Play Championship here at Finca Cortesin on Spain’s Costa del Sol yesterday.
Graeme McDowell goes into today’s first round contest against Sweden’s Robert Karlsson in the Volvo World Match Play Championship at Finca Cortesin near Estepona in Southern Spain hopeful that a change from the regular diet of stroke play to head-to-head confrontations will provide the kick start that his career badly needs.
All-American nice guy Matt Kuchar playfully told the media to “suck it” after clinching the US PGA Players Championship and its $1.7 million (€1.3m) winner’s cheque.
They may have been 1989 Irish Boys team-mates but that’s where Pádraig Harrington and Simon Parkhill’s golfing careers took very divergent pathways.
Malahide teenager Gavin Moynihan joined major winners Padraig Harrington and Louis Oosthuizen on the roll of champions when he produced a brilliant short game display and defied near gale force winds to clinch the Irish Amateur Open in dramatic fashion at Royal Dublin.
Ricardo Santos shot a spectacular closing 63 yesterday to give Portugal their first European Tour win for 20 years.
The enigmatic John Daly has confirmed he will take part in this year’s Irish Open at Royal Portrush.
Rory McIlroy again crashed out of the Players Championship, golf’s richest event, at Sawgrass last night.
Kelan McDonagh confessed that golf has been put firmly in perspective by his girlfriend’s brave battle with cancer after he opened with a battling 72 to keep the leaders in his sights in the Irish Amateur Open at Royal Dublin.
It was agony and ecstasy for two of England’s stars at golf’s richest event today.
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