Golf Digest: You want to go to next year's Ryder Cup at the K Club but you didn't enter the ticket lottery? Know no one on the inside track?
Never fear, AIB, one of the associate sponsors of the 2006 match, have conceived an idea that will give members of any club affiliated to the GUI and the ILGU an opportunity to win a piece of paper that promises to be the hottest ticket in sport next year, writes Philip Reid.
Christy O'Connor jnr, who knows a thing or two about the demands of winning the Ryder Cup, developed the idea for the competition in conjunction with the bank. It will allow players - men and women - to qualify from their own club competition and proceed as a pair to a provincial tournament and, ultimately, on to a national final.
Out of each provincial qualifying event, the top six pairs will qualify to represent their province in the AIB Ryder Cup semi-finals. In those semi-finals, Connacht will play Munster with Leinster facing Ulster. The teams will play mixed foursomes and mixed fourballs, with the winners qualifying for the national final, which will be played over the Palmer Course - venue for the Ryder Cup - next July, two months before the actual match.
The winning team will receive a pair of Ryder Cup tickets for two match days and overnight accommodation for two in a three-star hotel in Dublin. The runners-up will receive tickets for each team member and a guest for one day.
It is up to each club to organise its qualifying competition, which will run from September to April. Details of the competition will be supplied to club secretaries over the coming days.
Garcia fined: Sergio Garcia has been fined by the European Tour for his latest show of temper.
Garcia won the European Masters in Switzerland on Sunday but has been punished for kicking an advertising board during his third round.
After three-putting the 17th for a double-bogey six, the world number six kicked the sign as he went to the next tee.
Tournament director David Probyn said at the time: "Any breach of normal golfing etiquette is frowned upon and not acceptable. When incidents are reported to us, as this has been, we look into them and deal with them."
And tour officials have confirmed that the Ryder Cup star has been fined for the incident, although the amount of the penalty has not been released.
It is not the first time the fiery Spaniard has found himself in trouble.
At the World Matchplay at Wentworth in 1999, the year he turned professional, Garcia was reprimanded and warned about his future conduct after slipping on a tee, taking off the offending shoe and kicking it, almost hitting referee John Grant.
But worst of all was the 2001 Greg Norman International in Sydney. He was penalised for taking a wrong drop when leading the event and in his fury hit a golf buggy and a tree with his sandwedge before criticising chief referee John Paramor.
The European Tour has a policy of not announcing the size of fines, but Garcia was thought to have been fined £5,000 then.
It is unlikely this latest fine will have been so severe, with Garcia's state of mind at the time probably taken into account.
The 25-year-old dedicated the 15th win of his professional career to a 24-year-old friend in Tenerife who died of lung cancer on Friday night.
"It was a tough day, it was a big hit to my head when I found out," he said. "I wanted to play well for her and her family and I think I almost tried too hard.
"I was a bit concerned on the back nine, but on the 16th (where he chipped in for birdie) I think Maria, all the way from the skies, helped me."
PGA Tour: Olin Browne captured his first title for six years when he fired a closing, four-under-par 67 for a one-shot victory at the $5.5-million Deutsche Bank Championship in Massachusetts on Monday.
Browne, without a win since the 1999 Colonial and playing on a sponsor's exemption, hit five birdies and one bogey to finish with a 14-under aggregate of 270.
Jason Bohn (68), one of five joint leaders after the third round, was second on 271. Vaughn Taylor came third on 274, one stroke ahead of Charles Howell, Jeff Brehaut, Joey Sindelar and Carl Pettersson.
World number one Tiger Woods carded a 71 to finish on three-under 281.
Browne, a lowly 119th on the money list and without a top-10 finish this year, was another of the overnight co-leaders alongside Bohn, Pettersson, John Rollins and Billy Andrade, but took control with four birdies in the first 10 holes.
The 46-year-old American dropped his only stroke of the day at the 15th but recovered with a birdie at the 17th.
Browne, who was the third-round leader at this year's US Open before slumping to a 10-over 80, said his final-day collapse at Pinehurst never entered his mind on Monday.
"This game teaches you a lot about being resilient," he said. "But you have to step up and do it."
Bohn, the 2005 BC Open champion, briefly held a share of the lead before an errant tee-shot at the ninth led to a bogey five.
Woods started the day seven shots off the pace and lost more ground when he double-bogeyed the opening hole.
