adminST ANDREWS. – A classic St Andrews Open was the lid on golf’s pressure cooker – a thrilling championship gamely trying to deflect attention from an unprecedented power struggle for the running of the game.
But Cameron Smith has turned up the heat, not just with scintillating golf that brought the Australian’s first major title but through his reluctance to counter rumours he is about to defect to the LIV Golf Invitational Series.
What a coup it would be for Greg Norman’s Saudi Arabian-funded outfit were they to tempt the new world number two, who also won this year’s Players Championship, the PGA Tour’s flagship tournament.
By merely stating that his “team deal with that sort of stuff”, Smith offered no comfort to embattled bosses from golf’s status quo.
The 28-year-old has become the sport’s hottest property and fellow Australian Norman is surely preparing an enormous offer.
Throughout the week of the 150th Open rumours swept the Old Course.
Several leading names were being linked with signing up for Norman’s lucrative breakaway series.
The Open ends the men’s major season; a punctuation mark. The PGA and DP World Tours must fear what is next written in the history of the sport.
The future of events such as the Ryder Cup feel far from certain and Europe’s captain Henrik Stenson is widely rumoured to be among the next to accept Saudi millions.
“Continued speculation,” is how the European tour described the rumours, but Stenson has had plenty of opportunities to pledge loyalty to the role he signed up for only last March.
He has remained silent when his continent most needed him.
How different might the landscape of men’s professional golf look by the time Smith defends the Claret Jug at Royal Liverpool next year?
How distant will seem memories of last week’s Old Course epic?
The champion treated us to a blistering performance to hold off Cameron Young and overhaul Rory McIlroy for whom this Open provided another bitterly disappointing result.
Last Sunday was not the day for the Northern Irishman to leave his putter in the fridge.
Unable to single putt any of the 18 greens left him vulnerable despite an intelligent game plan efficiently and calmly implemented.
St Andrews is not the most atmospheric Open venue. Crowds are restricted to the outside perimeter and the best views come from grandstands, especially around the loop from the seventh to 11th holes.
But a record attendance of 290,000 ensured the 150th edition never lacked a sense of occasion that was commensurate with its historical significance.
Anything but. It was a fantastic spectacle.
But LIV is here and it is not going away.
Their third tournament is next week at Donald Trump’s place at Bedminster, New Jersey.
It will not be a quiet week and new recruits may be on show.
LIV are turning the hob to the max.
Their influence remains the big talking point, despite a glorious Open at the home of golf.
The pressure cooker may be about to explode. It is anyone’s guess how the resulting mess might return to a sense of order. – BBC Sport.
Online Reporter