Whistling Straits Diary

The race to make the European Ryder Cup team does not start until next month but captain Darren Clarke is already champing at the bit for qualifying to begin.

This week at the PGA Championship is probably the last tournament Clarke will experience as a player without the burdens of his office, and his scoring at Whistling Straits meant it would be over by the weekend.

Nevertheless, Clarke has a hectic year ahead as he monitors the potential make-up of his 12-man team and begins to fine-tune preparations for the 2016 matches in Hazeltine from September 30 to October 2.

That nearly 13-month lead-in starts on September 3 at the M2M Russian Open, when the qualification process gets under way and players will be able to start accumulating points on the two relevant lists. Clarke will take into action the leading four players on the European Points List, which is based on accumulated European Tour Race To Dubai points, and the top five on the World Points list, which is based on the official ranking points from tournaments around the world.

The Tour yesterday announced that the process will conclude at next year’s Made in Denmark tournament, the final round of which is set to conclude on August 28, 2016, with Clarke set to reveal his three captain’s picks for Team Europe the following week.

“We saw last year the fantastic atmosphere created at Made in Denmark, and I’m sure that will only intensify next year with the excitement of it being the final counting event towards the 2016 Ryder Cup,” Clarke said. “It may feel like a long way off now, but Denmark will provide the perfect place to conclude the qualification campaign next year.

“Like the players, I can’t wait for the qualification process to get underway in Russia in four weeks.”

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Dustin Johnson may or may not believe in omens but there is one stat that emerged from his outright lead after 18 holes that the American most probably will not have liked.

Johnson shot an opening, six-under-par 66 at Whistling Straits on Thursday for a one-stroke lead over David Lingmerth.

Now Johnson has been famously unable to get the job done at the majors despite getting off to fast starts. This year alone he is a combined 20-under-par for his four opening rounds but is still searching for his first major championship victory.

So with that in mind, he will most likely have wished to ignore the fact that the last outright leader at the end of the first round to go on and win the PGA Championship was Hal Sutton. That was in 1983, 31 years ago.

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David Lingmerth is no stranger to boom and bust scoring streaks, with this year’s Memorial champion from Sweden having a habit of doing it in a single round.

Lingmerth’s five-under-par 67 in the first round was assisted by birdies on five of his first seven holes and was reminiscent of his lightning start at St Andrews last month. Back then, on his Open Championship debut, the US-based Swede went out at a blistering pace, carding seven birdies for an outward 29, but ultimately finished tied for 74th.

In yesterday’s second round he was at it again, with three quick birdies on his first five holes at Whistling Straits to overtake Dustin Johnson as outright leader at eight under. By the time he reached the turn, Lingmerth fell to four-under-par for an outward, one-over-par 37 having negotiated the seventh, eighth and ninth holes in double bogey-bogey-bogey.