The Wardman Wire

I can’t resist this, and I have to run it now in case Europe loses the Ryder Cup. The Maceration of Phil Mickelson:

The 28-year-old rookie from Mansfield, who scraped into the team as an automatic qualifier, has had to put up with references to his winless career on the European Tour, nailed the kind of triumph that many a champion would kill for. A long, match-winning putt for birdie on the 17th green saw off Phil Mickelson and Anthony Kim.

Mansfield continues to be the UK’s unchallenged capital of sport:

Oliver Wilson joined Rebecca Adlington in the pantheon of Mansfield sporting greats yesterday when he sealed the final automatic place in the Ryder Cup team.

Photo: Clusterflock. For some reason the Daily Mirror can’t bring itself to print the picture of a male golfer when a blonde can be linked to the story. As Becky B might say: “What, with these shoulders?”. Oh well.

Anyway, here’s the button (Chad, take note and please keep your blog up to date. Something must have happened since I did the last one of these):

I can’t resist this either.

This is what ‘Eck officially says about Golf:

“There are few things that link Scotland with America as strongly as the sport of golf.”

In the matter of Trump, perhaps:

Alex Salmond was “cavalier” and displayed “exceptionally poor judgment” in his dealings over Donald’s Trump’s controversial plans for a £1 billion golf resort, an official inquiry has found.

Not to mention personal jollies funded by the taxpayer:

Mr Salmond is jetting out to Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Kentucky, in September with a bevy of aides.

The golf fanatic claims it’s a fact-finding mission ahead of the 2014 Ryder Cup at Gleneagles. But Labour leadership hopeful Andy Kerr said: “This is typical of Mr Salmond.

“Trips made by the First Minister should be subject to scrutiny and the use of a substantial amount of public money for a so-called fact-finding mission has to be questioned.”

A spokesman for the Taxpayers’ Alliance added: “Politicians need to make it clear that abusing your position and forcing taxpayers to support a personal trip like this is utterly unacceptable. Politicians need to show it isn’t one rule for them, another for the rest of us.

“Handing hard-pressed taxpayers the bill for a holiday hardly suggests that Alex Salmond takes the task of delivering value for money seriously. If he wants to go and see the golf he should pay himself.”

Not in the Ryder Cup, however. This is the list of this week’s Ryder Cup team:

• Nick Faldo (England)
• Paul Casey (England)
• Sergio Garcia (Spain)
• Soren Hansen (Denmark)
• Padraig Harrington (Ireland)
• Miguel Angel Jimenez (Spain)
• Robert Karlsson (Sweden)
• Graeme McDowell (Northern Ireland)
• Ian Poulter (England)
• Justin Rose (England)
• Henrik Stenson (Sweden)
• Lee Westwood (England)
• Oliver Wilson (England)

Ooops.

Well, Alex - where are they? Perhaps the Alex jolly-cash should have gone on golf training in order to glorify Eretz-Escocia. It was cancelled anyway.

Maybe this is one sport where we need to keep a UK-wide team to save Scotland’s blushes.

[Update: Oh 'Eck! They were stuffed like an oversized Haggis made out of an undersized sheep. Perhaps they should have had Colin Montgomerie as Captain and 'Eck as Mascot.

Still. Je ne regrette rien.]