GOLF NEWS ROUND-UP:NEARLY SEVEN years after it was announced the Ryder Cup was going to Wales for the first time, golf fans around the world are finally about to see the course on which it is being played.
The Wales Open has been staged annually at Celtic Manor since 2000, but this week's tournament is the first being staged on the Twenty Ten lay-out where Europe and America will do battle in two years' time.
A central component of Wales' bid for the match was the resort's commitment to build a golf course and clubhouse to host the match and by the completion of the project they will have invested over €20.1 million. The course is a par 71 featuring nine new holes along the floor of the Usk Valley, as well as nine holes from the former Wentwood Hills. Because of the format of the Ryder Cup, with just 24 players playing over three days, the designers sought to ensure the course offers better spectator viewing than at any previous Ryder Cup match.
Open champion Padraig Harrington is the star attraction this week. He opted out of the PGA Championship at Wentworth - the European Tour's flagship event - because he thought the Wales Open, an event he has never played in before, fitted better into his countdown to the US Open in a fortnight's time.
"It also gives me an opportunity to get an early look at the course which will stage the next Ryder Cup and I've heard a lot of good things about it," said the Dubliner.
The prize fund has been increased to a record €2.26 million, with €377,000 going to the winner on Sunday.
Miguel-Angel Jimenez, winner at Wentworth, is in the field, as are Oliver Wilson, whose play-off defeat on Sunday was his seventh runners-up finish on Tour, Colin Montgomerie, Paul McGinley, Robert Karlsson and Yorkshire's Danny Willett, who will be making his professional debut after becoming number one in the world amateur rankings.
Meanwhile, American teenager Michelle Wie, troubled by a wrist injury for more than a year, will make only her third appearance of the season in this week's Ladies German Open. It will be the first time the 18-year-old Hawaiian has competed in a full-field Ladies European Tour (LET) event. "They gave me a sponsor's exemption and I thought, 'Wow, Munich'," Wie said yesterday.
Wie's two previous appearances this year were on the LPGA Tour, at the Michelob ULTRA Open in Virginia earlier this month and at the Fields Open in Hawaii in February. The 72-hole event starts tomorrow on the outskirts of Munich at Golfpark Gut Hausern.
