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    Bunker Mentality

    Golf’s real new superstar

    There has been a lot written about a certain 22-year-old lighting up the world of golf in recent weeks, but while Rory McIlroy is being rightly celebrated for his achievements, the astonishing emergence of Yani Tseng deserves more column inches.

    The Taiwanese sensation, who like wee Rory is only 22, has just won her fifth (that's right, FIFTH) Major by claiming the British Open title at Carnoustie last weekend.

    There really is no precedent for this in women's or men's golf - and it remains to be seen just how dominant Tseng can be.

    It is, however, worth remembering that Tiger Woods still only had one Major title to his name when he was 22, and it would be another two years before he went on to claim number five.

    Looking for parallels in the women's game is even harder when you consider that the Major record holder Annika Sorenstam (who won 10 in total), was a comparatively ancient 32 when she won the fifth of her 10 successes.

    Tseng has won the LPGA Championship as well as the Women's British Open this year, and what's more she also finished second in the first Major of the year - the Kraft Nabisco Championship. She has now won four of the last eight Majors.

    With women's golf planning to make the Evian Masters a fifth Major from 2013, all of golf's proudest records are up for grabs for this sensationally talented young player.

    "I wish to win more, but I am really happy," Tseng said with typical modesty after her win at Carnoustie.

    "I think in my mind I say, wow, five-times Major. I never think about that. It just feels really very special.

    "I hope to keep winning. Next year there are another four Majors and I will try and organise and keep working hard."

    An interesting side-note to this whole thing is that Tseng actually lives in a house she purchased from Sorenstam two years ago and still meets up with her golfing hero for advice.

    When Sorenstam's retirement in 2008 was followed not long after by Lorena Ochoa's decision to quit in 2010, women's golf found itself in desperate need of a new superstar.

    The search has ended.

    +++

    TWITTER MISHAP OF THE WEEK

    Rory McIlroy's childish tiff with Jay Townsend on Twitter last week was ill-advised to say the least. The content of Townsend's comments are largely irrelevant in the general scheme of things because they would have got lost in the wash if McIlroy hadn't responded to them. McIlroy had been lauded in the American media for the way that he bounced back from his Masters implosion to win the US Open and had golf's biggest commerical market eating out of his hand. Now though he has been labelled a "spoilt brat" by the Golf Channel in America and, rightly or wrongly, that's the sort of stuff that sticks - just ask Colin 'Mrs Doubtfire' Montgomerie.

    OVERDUE DECISION OF THE WEEK

    Padraig Harrington has been tinkering with his swing in all manner of ways over the last couple of years but his slump down the rankings shows no sign of slowing down. However, he has now finally taken the tough, but necessary, decision to part with his coach of 13 years Bob Torrance. Desperate times call for desperate measures and while some of Harrington's changes in recent seasons have been highly questionable, this is one move that had to be made. Hopefully a fresh pair of eyes and a new perspective can help the three-times Major winner break his alarming slump which has seen him go three years without a title.

    WISH I HAD PUT MONEY ON HIM BET OF THE WEEK

    I don't know what odds rookie Scott Stallings was to win his first US Tour title at the Greenbrier Classic in West Virginia, but they must have been big. Stallings had recorded only one top-10 in his previous 20 starts on the 2011 US Tour but showed steely nerve to beat Bob Estes and Bill Haas in a play-off.

    POLITICIAN ACTING LIKE A POLITICAN OF THE WEEK

    Tiger Woods has signed up to play at the Australian Open in Sydney in November and the question is already being asked - how much is he being paid to turn up? In 2009 Woods was paid a AUD$3 million appearance fee and that decision sparked an outrage. Of course soon after that "some stuff happened" that made Tiger a little less marketable so it is hard to imagine he will be getting anything close to that figure this time. Deputy Premier Andrew Stoner was certainly playing politics when answering the question. "It's commercial and in confidence," he said. "May I say the return to taxpayers is going to be massive, something like an additional AUD$10 million boost, and we're paying nothing like the Victorians have in past years." The Sydney Morning Herald still reckons Tiger will be paid a cool AUD$2 million for playing in the tournament.

     

    About Bunker Mentality

    From the top of the golfing tree to the grubby roots of the game which bind us all together, Bunker Mentality will be there: It’ll tees up slices of news, and send them fizzing back down the neatly-trimmed fairway of opinion with more punch than a Tiger 2-iron stinger, more spin than a Mickelson wedge – and more bottle than John Daly.

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