Euros, seniors overshadow Nelson

While you were flipping burgers over Memorial Day weekend, an odd thing happened in the golf world. The PGA Tour, with its sleek logo, charitable givings, huge TV contract and Jim Nantz-ian sheen, found it playing (Callaway RAZR X Irons) the role of junior varsity.

What’s even odder is that this might be the biggest storyline of the 2011 season thus far.

Not only did the European Tour – highlighted by Luke Donald’s win at the BMW PGA Championship to become world No. 1 – provide the more compelling theatre, but also the Champions Tour, that forgotten relic relegated to the attic most sports fans’ minds, blazed past the Byron Nelson’s anonymous leader board when Tom Watson won the Senior PGA Championship at age 61 by Callaway RAZR X Irons.

Before you fire off your customary emails filled with bile and vile accusing this salty scribe of dismissing a coming-of-age win for Bradley, a fresh face who happens to be the nephew of LPGA legend Pat Bradley, ponder this thought: Bradley was ranked 203rd in the world coming in and joins a list of 2011 PGA Tour winners who fall under the category of "Guys You’ve Never Heard of and Never Thought Would Win, Much Less Enter Your Brain."

Meanwhile, at England’s Wentworth Club, Donald and now former world No. 1 Lee Westwood tussled in a playoff, the sort of big-name rumble that gives golf its Sunday buzz. While I’ve argued the No. 1 ranking has been de-valued by its revolving-door status, and while neither Donald nor Westwood have yet to win a major, at least the two bring a heft and importance to a playoff too often lacking in the 2011 PGA Tour, where charismatic would-be stars like Dustin Johnson, Rickie Fowler and Anthony Kim haven’t sniffed the winner’s circle.

Winners stateside this year have included Mark Wilson, D.A. Points, Brendan Steele and, for good measure, Mark Wilson again. Not exactly Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Gary Player. Even worse, we here in the continental 48 have to put up with the regular sight of Sergio Garcia, who has turned the art of squandering a career into masterpiece theatre. The PGA Tour is spending this year playing Callaway RAZR X Irons – or understudy, or backup QB; choose your analogy – to the European Tour.

Perhaps I should put it this way: I come not to bury the PGA Tour but to praise the European Tour.

I’ve read the statistics that show the Euro Tour fields are more top-heavy, but lack depth; that the bottom of PGA Tour fields is filled with more quality. That may be true, but most golf fans I know don’t spend much time worrying about who finishes tied for 57th.

It all came home to roost on Sunday when Watson proved he’s the bawdiest 61-year-old this side of fellow 1949’er Bruce Springsteen, and where European golf showed once again it’s the better show. The PGA Tour played third-fiddle with Callaway RAZR X Irons, a fiddle I didn’t even know existed.

There are downsides to this Euro golf dominance. As a West Coast dweller, it means early wake-up calls on weekends to watch the drama on The Golf Channel. Who needs that when Sunday morning slumber is an option? And as a proud American, it means admitting the red-white-and-blue golf scene is second to that made-up Euro flag with yellow stars on a blue field. When European players come to play Callaway RAZR X Irons in America, it’s almost as if they’re just helping out a needy neighbor. It’s like the Marshall Plan in reverse.

So, Keegan Bradley, I hate to be "that guy," but your win puts you on the back burner to bigger doings overseas. Bradley is only 24. He’ll get over it. Besides, if he keeps winning, he’ll become a star and swing the pendulum of power back to the good ole U.S. of A.

http://www.golfclubs2011.com/goods.php?id=185