Of Spanish Golfers and an Oversized Arabian Coffee Pot

We've written about weird/wonderful golf trophies several times in the past, touching on the whimsicality of some and the creepiness of others.

One of the most impressive however, has got to be the massive Arabian coffee pot awarded to the winner of the Dubai Desert Classic.

This past week the gigantic carafe was on display again.  Throughout the week, it sat on the sidelines at Emirates Golf Club as a strong field of players battled it out on the course.

In the end it was Rafael Cabrera-Bello who won the pot trophy,  holding off a strong field that included Lee Westwood, Rory McIlroy and Martin Kaymer ...among others.  It was the third time... in three years... that a Spanish champion emerged victorious at this event.  You may remember our posts on the victories of Miguel Angel Jimenez and Alvaro Quiros who won in 2010 and 2011 respectively.

This year however, the win was Rafa's, and when the time came to kiss the trophy, he chose to bite it instead.  That's a Spanish thing too,  initiated by another athletic Rafa, tennis star Rafael Nadal.  Many have asked what the gesture signifies, and I don't really know the answer to that.  I just know it's caught on, and now professional and amateur athletes in various sports are doing it... all over the world.

The victory was undoubtedly a huge for Señor Cabrera-Bello who hasn't had a win since October 2009 at the Austrian Open.  It's a stellar start to his season... and the ginormous Arabian coffee pot looks like it was quite a mouthful.

Breakthrough Weekend for Not-So-Young Guns

Robert Rock, photo: Stuart Franklin/Getty Images || Harrison Frazar, photo:AP

Robert Rock's first career win was nine years coming, while Harrison Frazar clinched his maiden professional victory after 355 starts.

At 34 and 39 respectively, this weekend's winners... on the European Tour and the US PGA Tour respectively... clearly aren't what we've come to know as "Young Guns".

The word "finally"... followed in at least one case by an exclamation point... figured prominently in coverage of both tours today, and as exciting as it is to watch implausibly young players push boundries and break records, it's another kind of awesome to witness a long awaited breakthrough win.  This week golf got two.

OWGR Needs to Serve Up Some Sexy Infographics

For the time being, the era of an ultra-dominant W#1 golfer is over.

This reality has opened the door for some bombastic opinionating thoughtful discussion on the system by which golf's top player is determined.

As Lee Westwood recaptured the top spot... then quickly grew weary of of the public polemic surrounding it... myriad opinion posts and countless Twitter debates have challenged the current point system or... extolled its virtues.
 
Some suggested there was simply too much nuance inherent in the game for any ranking system based strictly on data to be relevant ...which was kind of interesting until that post abrubtly ended with a facile quip on Luke Donald's recent fashion daring.

PGATour.com's Melanie Hauser wrote what I found to be the best breakdown of the current OWGR controversy, providing some historical perspective and finishing with a call to "sit back and enjoy the shuffle".  Which is definitely what I'll do. --->

I do have one suggestion for the OWGR that might go a long way towards making their rankings more engaging for a wider swath of the population... those like myself who just aren't that into raw data on who's #1: Have a look at the Rolex Rankings.

Women's golf certainly knows something about a shuffle at the top, but they don't seem to get bogged down by it.  And the Women's World Golf Ranking... the Rolex Rankings... do some extremely sexy things with their stats. They also provide a depth of information about the game that makes the battle for number one... and the trajectories of individual players... much, much, much more engaging than the bare-bones OWGR site.

The Rolex site is easy-on-the-eyes and interactive; fans can select favorite players and compare their progress infographically.  It's brilliant and I'm quite sure that if applied to the OWGR it would encourage... and enrich... engagement with men's professional golf. The tiresome discussion of who should, could, would be #1 is fine for hardened golf journalists/bloggers/scribes but the rest of us would surely appreciate a little infographic love.

Perseverance Pays Off for Nicolas Colsaerts

When I think of Belgium I think of beer.. or Brel... but I don't generally think of professional golfers.

In fact the last time a Belgian won on the European Tour was almost three decades ago when Phillipe Toussaint edged out Bob Shearer in a sudden death playoff at the Benson & Hedges Festival of Golf in 1974.

However, for the past ten years there's been a young man striving to put the Kingdom of Belgium back onto the top of the leaderboard, and yesterday he succeeded, with his breakthrough victory at the Volvo China Open.

His name is Nicolas Colsaerts, but they call him the "Belgian Bomber" because of his prodigious power game. The 29 year-old is a big hitter.  Really big. Longest-drive-on-the-European-Tour big.
I know... you probably thought that honor belonged to Alvaro Quiros... so did I... but it actually belongs to the Belgian, and on Saturday at Luxehills International Country Club he demonstrated it at the 18th hole, a 600-yard par five. Colsaerts hit driver then seven-iron and hit the green in two.  Then two-putted for a birdie and a 66 on the day.  That after a 65-67 in rounds one and two. With a final round 66 he took the title, four strokes clear of Soren Kjeldsen, Peter Lawrie, Pablo Martin and Danny Lee in a four way tie.

Though he's not yet 30 it's been a long and circuitous route for Nicolas Colsaerts who's visited Qualifying School four times since he first made it onto the European tour in 2000. He now finds himself at 10th in the Race to Dubai and at 107 in the world rankings.

With his power game, years of experience... and now, this breakthrough win... we'll most likely be hearing more about Nicolas Colsaerts, which might just inspire me to buy a couple of six packs of Duvel and get some Jacques Brel onto my iPod. As if I needed an excuse for that.

Photo by Ian Walton/Getty Images AsiaPac

Sources: gantdaily.com,  msnbc.com

China Panda-monium: Sergio Garcia, Cute & Cuddly

I'm a huge fan of Sergio Garcia ... and a huge fan of baby Panda bears.  So when sexy Señor Garcia met cute and cuddly, Ya Yun yesterday... at the Chendu Panda Base Breeding center in Chengdu, China...  it was definitely a photo-op that piqued my interest.

Sergio is in China's Sichuan Province for the Volvo China Open which takes place this week at Luxehills International Country Club.

Garcia's one-time nemesis, Padraig Harrington, also paid a visit to the Pandas, and he too will be in the field along with defending champion Y. E. Yang, and 2010 Ryder Cup Champion, Colin Montgomerie.

It might be Chinese star Liang Wen-Chong who has the biggest advantage, however.  The most recent of his 17 career wins came less than a year ago at the Luxehills Chengdu Open... on the same course that's hosting this week's  event. ----->

They say Pandas bring good luck though, and Ya Yun is clearly smitten with Sergio. So the swarthy Spaniard may well be celebrating his second Middle Kingdom win come Sunday.  As I understand it, Golf Channel will provide coverage Thursday - Sunday from 9:00AM - 12:30AM, ET.

In the meantime I wouldn't be at all surprised to find Sergio, playing some Panda Golf.

Photo: Ian Walton/Getty Images AsiaPac

Matteo Manassero: A Second Win & Still Seventeen

I heard more than one golf fan lamenting the absence of Matteo Manassero at the Masters last week.

After all, a year ago he'd been the youngest ever to make the cut in Augusta.  He followed that up with a win at the Castello Masters in October and became the youngest ever to win on the European Tour.
 
Those accomplishments weren't enough to get him into this year's Masters however.  Though he'd gotten down to 55 in the world rankings, as a professional, he needed to be in the top 50 to make the field at the season's first major.

Happily, those legions of Manassero fans needn't lament any longer. Matteo won the Maybank Malaysian Open today, and is now well within within the numbers... at 35th in the world... for the three remaining majors. He accomplished his win in style too, narrowly defeating Gregory Bourdy and Rory McIlroy, despite valiant challenges from both.

Paying tribute to Seve Ballesteros, who he described as "the kind of player I wanted to be" Matty kissed the massive, beribboned cup and went off to celebrate his 18th birthday.

April 16, 2011 - Photo by Ian Walton/Getty Images AsiaPac