EUROPEAN TOUR chief George O’Grady wasn’t exaggerating when he claimed on Sunday that 2011 has been the greatest year in his organisation’s history.

THE European Tour and sponsors, the Andalucian Tourist Board, must have been furious the Andalucian Masters was bypassed by many marquee names in favour of the Shanghai Masters.

THE excited Valderrama crowd cheered Sergio Garcia home to a hugely significant victory for himself and Spain yesterday but the sparse but vocal Irish in the gallery also had plenty to shout about after a superb final day performance by Shane Lowry at the Andalucia Masters.

FRESH from his remarkable 11 strokes victory in front of his home fans in Castellon on Sunday, Sergio Garcia has moved down the coast in western Spain to Valderrama where the €3m Andalucia Masters gets underway tomorrow.

GOLF is one of the most individualistic if not the most selfish of sporting activities.

JOSE-MARIA OLAZABAL has mixed feelings this week.

KEEGAN BRADLEY’S victory in the US PGA Championship on Sunday was cause for celebration in Kenmare in the early hours of Monday but otherwise the week in Atlanta was a bitter disappointment for Ireland’s best.

RORY MCILROY played the most impressive golf of the day and produced a barrage of birdies on the way to beating two-times US Open champion Retief Goosen in yesterday’s opening round of the €3.4 million Volvo World Match Play Championship at Finca Cortesin.

GRAEME McDOWELL and Rory McIlroy, Ireland’s two representatives in an impressive 24-man field, have been handed difficult draws in the pool stages of the €3.4m Volvo World Match Play which starts at Finca Cortesin, Spain, on Thursday.

THE passing of the peerless Seve Ballesteros at the weekend has overshadowed everything else in the game of golf to such an extent that it seems almost disrespectful to discuss anything else.

WITH a fortnight to the Masters, several stellar names bid to sharpen their game for Augusta in the Arnold Palmer Invitational Bay Hill Classic in Orlando this week.

THE new world rankings are remarkable, not so much for the fact that England’s Lee Westwood remains number one for the 14th successive week, but that Ireland’s Pádraig Harrington has fallen all the way back to 32nd.

THE formal ratification of Jose-Maria Olazabal as captain of the European Ryder Cup team at Medinah next year takes place shortly after lunch today.

GRAEME McDOWELL emerged from what he described as a war of attrition at Valderrama yesterday to capture his third title of a momentous season and appreciably narrow the gap between himself and the German Martin Kaymer in the European Tour’s Race to Dubai order of merit.

GRAEME McDowell was quick to stress that there’s a long way to go in the Andalucia Masters at Valderrama.

THE ABSENCE of Pádraig Harrington and Rory McIlroy from this week’s Andalucia Masters has caused considerable disappointment in these parts.

AFTER Paul McGinley came out publicly yesterday in favour of Jose-Maria Olazabal for the job at Medinah, Chicago, in two years’ time, it is now a virtual certainty that Ireland will have to wait at least another four years before being honoured with the captaincy of the European Ryder Cup team.

WHAT is it about the Irish that they are so often central to the story when Europe beat the United States for the Ryder Cup?

THOSE convinced that European success in this Ryder Cup is a foregone conclusion should temper their optimism with a little caution and remember the happenings at Brookline in 1999.

FIRST it was Rory McIlroy saying any member of the European team would fancy taking on Tiger Woods in the Ryder Cup. Last night it was his captain, Colin Montgomerie, of all people, adding fuel to the fire by using the word “hidden” to describe the world number one’s placing at number three in the order for this morning’s fourballs at Celtic Manor.

COLIN MONTGOMERIE can breathe a little easier after Paul Casey’s strong but fruitless bid to capture the BMW Championship in Chicago on Sunday.

COREY PAVIN, the US Ryder Cup captain, today announces his four wild cards for Celtic Manor next month well satisfied with the form of most of those who have already qualified were performing in the Deutsche Bank Championship in Boston over the weekend.

RYDER CUP captain Colin Montgomerie yesterday spoke of his admiration for wild card wannabe Pádraig Harrington ahead of tomorrow evening’s European team announcement.

LATER this evening, Colin Montgomerie and his three Ryder Cup vice captains, Paul McGinley, Thomas Bjorn and Darren Clarke, will sit down to dinner in Monty’s luxurious home five miles from Gleneagles.

IT IS little wonder that Colin Montgomerie’s concentration levels suffer now and then, given all the rumours and reports concerning his private life. He was at it again yesterday, when stating Edoardo Molinari would be next in line for a Ryder Cup place should Lee Westwood have to withdraw because of a leg injury.

PÁDRAIG HARRINGTON admitted last month that he would be “devastated to miss the Ryder Cup.”

US RYDER CUP captain Corey Pavin didn’t know whether to laugh or cry after surveying the leaderboard at the end of the WGC Bridgestone Invitational in Akron.

IT’S ironic that after all the predictions of a sub-60 round at the 3 Irish Open, the feat was achieved at the weekend – but not in Killarney.

COREY Pavin, the US Ryder Cup team captain, must be wondering what’s going on these days.

RYDER Cup talk will dominate all else this week when the players assemble for the Wales Open over the 2010 course at Celtic Manor, the venue for the clash of Europe and the US on October 1-3 next.

THE so called fifth major, the Players Championship at Sawgrass over the weekend, proved a salutary lesson for Ireland’s top two players, Rory McIlroy and Pádraig Harrington.

ONE month he wins the Champion Hurdle with Binocular, the next it’s the Aintree Grand National, and it seems life just couldn’t get any better for JP McManus.

THE magnificent exploits of Lee Westwood apart, the Masters provided little cheer for European Ryder Cup captain Colin Montgomerie.

THE certainty that there will be a fierce battle for places in the European Ryder Cup this year is good news for the ‘3’ Irish Open Championship at Killarney over the August Bank Holiday, less than a month before Colin Montgomerie’s team to face the USA at Celtic Manor is finalised.

THE colourful John Daly has been drawn with Ireland’s Paul McGinley and English Ryder Cup player Oliver Wilson in the first two rounds of the 3 Irish Open at Baltray.

DONEGAL giant Michael McGeady feared he might have thrown away his chance of appearing in this week’s 3 Irish Open at Baltray when he faltered over the closing six holes of the Italian Open in Turin on Sunday.

AUSTRALIAN Brett Rumford, the winner when the event was previously staged at Baltray in 2004, and newly crowned Spanish Open champion Thomas Levet, are among the latest entries for the 3 Irish Open starting at the Co Louth links on Thursday week, May 14.

MOBILE phone company 3, the new sponsors of the Irish Open, must be anxious at the lack of big-name foreign players who will compete in Baltray next month (May 14-17).

NICK Faldo’s “sandwich list” was back in the news again yesterday as the European captain announced his pairings for this morning’s foursomes at Valhalla.

AN AMERICAN journalist expressed the opinion immediately after the captains’ interviews yesterday that “Azinger is a smarter ass than Faldo”.

AT least some of the speculation concerning foursomes and fourball pairings will end today when Europe’s first Ryder Cup practice rounds take place over the Jack Nicklaus designed Valhalla course in Louisville, Kentucky, (8am local, 1pm Irish).

DESPITE failing to land his first European Tour victory in Switzerland on Sunday, 19-year-old Rory McIlroy from Holywood, Co Down has improved 61 places to 111th in the world rankings.

CONTRARY to some reports, not a single player has yet qualified for Europe’s Ryder Cup team to take on the USA at Valhalla in September.