Planet Golf

A round-up of other golf news

Singh's offer to pay bail denied

VIJAY SINGH might be keeping his counsel following the indictment of Texas billionaire Allen Stanford on fraud, conspiracy and obstruction charges but the Fijian was prepared to put his money where his mouth is last week. The Fijian, a three-time major winner, offered to post surety for Stanford's $500,000 (€355, 669) bail, CNBC has reported. Unfortunately for Stanford, as Singh is not an American citizen he was not allowed to help.

Singh signed an endorsement deal with Stanford in January and continues to display the logo on his shirt and hat despite the fact he is no longer being paid by the company. He is also the global ambassador for a charity initiative on the PGA Tour created by Stanford Financial Group.

Quizzed recently about the alleged $7 billion (€4.9 billion) pyramid scheme to defraud investors, Singh replied he didn't "really want to talk about that at all". Quite how much of Singh's own money was invested with the Stanford firm is not known but, given his continued support, one suspects he is not one of the thousands of investors to have seen their life savings go up in smoke.

Analyst predicted Glover's win

ONE MIGHT have thought Lucas Glover, a rank outsider going into the event, winning the US Open would have been a good result for the bookies. Not so. While we are unlikely to see them riding around on bicycles anytime soon, Irish turf accountants were hit where it hurts thanks to a fortuitous tip courtesy of Bob Bubka.

Apparently Bubka had dinner with Butch Harmon before the tournament and was told Glover was in peak form having discovered something during the US Open qualifiers.

Speaking on Newstalk's "Off the Ball" programme on the eve of the tournament, the American pundit imparted his pearl of wisdom to listeners.

Considering his odds at the time were as high as 175 to 1, many punters decided to have a flutter on Glover.

Paddy Power claimed to have lost €1.2 million following Glover's win, more than it would have done if the likes of Pádraig Harrington or Rory McIlroy had triumphed at Bethpage.

US PGA lose out in Setanta demise

ONE OF the biggest losers following the collapse of Setanta's UK operation is likely to be the US PGA Tour. While exact figures of the deal the Irish broadcaster paid for television rights were kept under wraps, it was believed to be in the region of €75 million over five years. Considering Sky Sports had previously paid just €5.8 million a year, Setanta's unfortunate demise is going to leave the PGA Tour very much out of pocket.

Eurosport has since picked up the rights for the remainder of the current season but given the current economic climate we can be sure it is a fraction of what Setanta had been paying.

Record rounds at Faithlegg

HEARTY congratulations to Faithlegg who broke the world record for the most amount of golfers playing 18 holes in 24 hours last week.

With the aid of floodlights to facilitate play through the night, 631 players managed to squeeze in 18 holes at the Co Waterford venue, beating the previous record set of 623 in China in 2006.

Play got under way at Faithlegg at 5.15am in the early hours of Monday and all 631 players had completed their rounds by 4.45am the following morning.

The record, in aid of the charity First Tee Ireland, remains subject to ratification from Guinness.

Ishikawa claims place in Open

RYO ISHIKAWA, Japan’s answer to Rory McIlroy, earned his place in next month’s British Open thanks to a win at the Mizuno Open on the Japanese tour over the weekend. The 17-year-old, known in his homeland as the Bashful Prince, survived a quintuple-bogey nine during his final round to collect the third professional title of his career.

Already a huge star in the Far East, where he has already pocketed over €7 million in endorsement deals, Ishikawa attracted over 400 members of the media to the Northern Trust Open when he made his PGA Tour debut earlier this year.

Turnberry, it would seem, can now expect a flood of accreditation requests from the Land of the Rising Sun.

Golfins Slang of the WeeK

The Dennis Wise – A nasty little five footer.