Greetings from the States!

What a phenomenal reply to the critics Rickie Fowler made at the weekend at TPC Sawgrass in the Players Championship!

Days after being voted by the other players as one of the two most ‘overrated players on tour’, along with Ian Poulter, he smashes his way through to winning golfs unofficial 5th Major with a birdie, par, birdie, eagle, birdie, birdie finish.

I don’t think the other players were being unkind to Rickie, it’s more of a compliment that they are amazed he’s only won one other tournament considering how good he is – he finished top 5 in all four majors last year and is the only golfer alongside Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods to achieve this.

It was obvious I was going to talk about Sawgrass as I’m out there playing a pro-am tournament – we watched the last round of The Players and the only golfer we didn’t see was Rickie!

The atmosphere around 16 and 17 with the island green is incredible and hot – it was touching 100 degrees most of the day - and the rest of the course is fairly empty. We followed Tiger and Dustin Johnson for their back nine and saw all the good and bad of Tiger with three birdies in a row followed by a triple bogey.

The flags on 16 and 17 were cut so close to the water and it’s astounding that they aim for the pin when it’s on the right side on 17. All the players who were looking like finishing in the middle of the pack hit to the centre of the green, lagged their putts close and went to the next. It was only when the contenders came through that they started to take it on.

We walked back down 15 and 14 to watch the leaders (and watched Sergio hit off the cart path in his socks!) and by the time we got to the par 3 13th with Chris Kirk and Kevin Kisner there were only about 80 people watching them. But that’s where the effect of the 17th green starts as we could hear a huge prolonged cheer from the 16th/17th area as Rickie nearly made an albatross on 16.

The players looked quite daunted as they played with virtually no galleries towards an increasingly loud cacophony of sound and more and more danger on the golf course too.

Rory Sabbatini obviously didn’t read my newsletter last week about spending less time preparing to hit a shot – he stood on the 16th tee and a baby cried. (The big difference between UK and US tournaments is that there are loads of kids in pushchairs walking along the cartpaths and people and families just walking around having a day out.)

Then at the top of his backswing somebody took a photo with their phone (which you’re allowed to do) but he had the sound on so it clicked. He proceeded to admonish the spectator and then said to his caddie “let’s start all over again!”.

So he picked the ball and peg up, took his glove off, put the driver back in the bag, the headcover went on, he then walked off the front of the tee, turned around and started again – even going to the extent of getting his yardage book out again to see the pin position! The result – he hooked it into the trees anyway!

Well done to Di Ferriday who won the Ladies club day by 6 shots in horrendous weather back home and good luck to the seniors as they play the Senior Club Championship (an incarnation of the Veterans Trophy) on Sunday.